Bullcrap at its Finest: Don't read this if you want to keep your IQ
by RedNemi
Summary: Wahahahaha I should probably rewrite this at some point XD.
1. Conceptual Magic 3 Honors

**An author's apology: the actual plot of the Minish Cap itself won't start for another chapter or two or three, as I must take the time to introduce the OC and establish her place in the world. This is actually one story of a series I'm planning on making if this one goes over well, so I hope you like it! In any case, on with the story!**

**[(Edit) If you would like a reference pic or two or three for Autumn, I uploaded some of my drawings to that Google+ thing. They're not colored yet-in fact none of them are even finished, but if you want a general picture of what's going on in my head, take a look...In that case, though, I guess it doesn't help that none of them have her in the correct outfit, but WE'LL IGNORE THAT. Just search Rednemi on Google Plus, my profile will come up.]**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Legend of Zelda. If you think I do, then you didn't read the disclaimer.**

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Chapter One~ Conceptual Magic 3 (Honors)

"Teehee, Autumn, he's staring at you _again_," Yuki said in a whisper, and she giggled. Autumn glared up at her for a moment then returned her attention to the doodle in her notebook. An angry shadow dragon's jaws lingered, open and expectant, over Yuki's head, which was surrounded with nonsensical sentences that represented how much the girl talked. Her lips curled back in a smile at the thought of a shadow beast coming to swallow her classmate and rid her of such a nuisance.

Of course, the twit was referring to that blockhead in the back row who had been staring at her since his unfortunate transference to the public high school in Minishland, and his even less fortunate enrollment into the third level magic class. Yuki leaned across the row and whispered in her ear.

"I think he likes you." And she giggled hysterically at the notion, and earned herself a glare from both Autumn and the teacher.

"Autumn, Yuki, do I have to separate you two?" he called from his desk.

"Yes, please do," Autumn said, as she did every time, and the class cringed at the sound of her voice.

"Well, I'm sure you can put up with each other for a few more days. In any case, Autumn, I believe you owe us a presentation." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You are prepared today, correct?"

"Yes sir." Reluctantly she rose from her desk and walked to the front of the room, eyes to the floor in front of her. Once there, she raised her gaze slowly, and finally laid eyes upon him. He was the only one besides the teacher who bothered to look in her general direction—even Yuki averted her eyes in fear of what her presentation held in store. His eyes were piercing and red, his hair a soft silver, with a small curtain that crossed his forehead and masked the right side of his face. She raised her hand to her chest and bowed in gratitude. He blinked and looked around, unsure what to make of this long-awaited acknowledgment.

When she straightened up, with a mumble she summoned a fire, and the flames swirled around her and threatened to consume the lives of the front-row students, the heat made the room unbearable, but she watched them suffer with a tooth-bearing smile, and red glints reflected on the whites of her eyes and made her seem even more demonic than usual. Finally, she fulfilled her purpose and balled the flames in her fists, ready to throw them at any who might seek to harm her. The presentation had been, after all, an exhibition of an assigned defensive spell.

The teacher's eyes were wide with fascination and his hands clasped together as he leaned forward on his elbows. He leaned back in his chair.

"Thank you, Autumn, for your presentation. You were a bit flamboyant with the conjuring of the fire itself but the result was acceptable. You may return to your seat. Next, I believe we have Hayden?"

The girl who sat behind Autumn squeaked and scampered to the front of the room, standing on the opposite side as she picked her way back to her seat.

As Hayden began her presentation Autumn returned her attention to her notebook doodles, and felt the eyes of the blockhead in the back row resting on the back of her head.

* * *

Other students scrambled to assemble their belongings and head out for home, Autumn took her time.

"Oh, before I forget, Autumn, Vaati, please speak with me after class." The teacher looked at her, then to a place behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see who this Vaati person might be—she had never heard such a name before—and the only other person not rushing to leave was the one who stared. She rose and went to the teacher's desk, and was soon joined.

"You two have heard of the Elder Sorcerer Elzo, correct?"

They nodded simultaneously.

"Every once in a blue moon or so he takes on one exceptional Magic student to become his apprentice; the student lives in his workshop and works alongside him on some projects, and he trains you. Based on what I've just said, can you deduce anything about why I might have called you up here?"

"He has accepted me into his apprenticeship," the boy—Vaati—said, his voice dripping with anticipation and excitement.

"Well, yes, but not just you. You two have such close levels of skill that he decided he would accept both of you."

She said nothing. The news was exciting, yes, but she didn't have to make a fool of herself like this kid was doing.

"This is a two-way contract though. To accept, all you have to do is show up at his workshop tomorrow morning at regular school times. Don't bring anything; he will provide you with everything you need. If you decide not to go, be aware that you will never receive an opportunity like this again." He looked at the two of them in the eyes. If he were to judge by facial expression, he could say with full confidence that Vaati would accept the offer. But Autumn's face was bland and her feelings were masked.

"What do you think, Autumn?"

"She'll be there," Vaati said with a side-glance over to her. She did not react, and they both assumed that she was thinking.

"In any case, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, so you are dismissed."

Autumn evidently woke from her trance at that moment.

"Thank you, Sensei," she said, bowing, and she gathered her belongings and left the room.

"Wait, Vaati, there _is_ one more thing I wanted to talk to you about." The teacher's eyes narrowed and he glanced briefly at Autumn's retreating form. "Do not thing that your developed habit of staring at Autumn has gone unnoticed. It is quite disturbing. May I ask what your motivation is?"

Vaati also stole a glance to the retreating figure. "Well, Sensei, to be frank, I find it fascinating that one girl can inspire so much fear in those surrounding her, and it's also a little confusing. It's hard to believe that she can be so powerful as to be fear by nearly the whole class."

"You'd be the first to ask."

"Well, why is everyone so afraid of her?" Vaati demanded. His tone had taken an authoritative command and the teacher was almost afraid not to oblige a response.

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**I'll try to keep all the chapters about this length, but I might not be able to.**

**Please review!**


	2. Rumors and Sunset Madness

**I don't like how the last chapter just kind of randomly dropped off like that, so here's another chapter.**

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"I...I just know the rumors, and faintly at that, considering the event happened a while ago," the teacher stammered. Why was this child glaring at him so? "And I will remind you of your place here, Vaati, you are being terribly disrespectful right now."

Vaati blinked and took a step back. "Oh...right. Well, no one will tell me the rumors, not even Yuki."

"Really? No one? It comes up in conversation a couple times a year in other classes."

"Maybe that's because she's not in those classes."

"True. Alright, just remember that this is entirely based on stories that were probably changed to make her seem more like a monster, and if you want the truth you should ask her yourself. Magic is something of a dying trend here, though the established mages, like Ezlo, are still highly respected. Anyone trying to debut in the profession is usually scorned for a long time before they are accepted. To go with that, most of the students who enroll in any level magic class here are either just seeking a schedule filler or they want to prank their friends with some simple transformation spell. Very few take it seriously, and Autumn has always been one of them. When she was in middle school, other students mocked her for always having her head stuck in a spellbook. She was typically a gentle person, so she never said anything when they ripped up her books and pushed her around. Retrospectively, they may have simply wanted her to come out and play with them at first, but as the time passed they grew to hate that she never did anything but study, and they started trying to do actual physical damage. This is where it gets iffy, story-wise. She was walking home from school one day, and a group of bullies followed her the whole distance, shouting taunts and snide remarks at her the whole time. She ignored them for the most part, but such statements get to the head eventually, and I believe they nearly drove her to the breaking point, and she had to choose between her weakness and her magic. Obviously, she chose her magic. I'm not sure what she did to herself, but when she reopened the gate to meet the oncoming pests, she wasn't the same. And whatever she did to that group of bullies caused a local fear of her."

"That's it? All she did was scare a couple kids and the whole town is scared of her?"

"Well, since we know that she is perfectly willing to do things to scare us, we have reason to be afraid of her, don't we? She hasn't done anything, but still, the notion is nerve-racking, I will admit."

Vaati scoffed and turned toward the door. "I was hoping for something more interesting. Maybe she banished them into some equivalent of hell, but if they were here to tell the tale, I guess not."

"Don't involve yourself with her, Vaati, you'll probably regret it," the teacher called as he left. The boy gave no indication of having heard the warning, just continued briskly on his way.

-line break thing goes here-

Autumn was walking too fast, approaching her home too soon. She dropped her bag on the corner and sat down beside it, sifting through the books and picking one out. No one would notice if she was late again—her mother hadn't seen her in a few days anyway, since she left for school before the woman woke up and escaped to her room when she got home before her presence was even noted. As she read, shadows approached with the setting sun. As the light disappeared from the sky, they rose from the ground and took form.

-Look at this, an unsuspecting soul, ready for invasion.- The voice was raspy and she whipped her head up and looked around for the source, but shadows are shadows, and as such cannot be seen in the dark.

-Let's see, who is this?- A gust of wind swirled around her and she felt the presence of something very close to her face, and she swung her fist at it.

-Hoho! I see now. What a sob story you have, boo hoo, remind me to think about cutting you some slack.- The voice dripped with sarcasm and laughed in her face. She stood.

"I don't know what you want, but I have to be going now," she said, her voice commanding.

-Oh no you don't. We have to feast on your soul, and when we're done with that, we'll possess the empty shell that remains and wreak our havoc upon your miserable little town. When a person possesses as much power as you do...- Hot air brushed against the nape of her neck. -...we shadow demons leap at the chance to take advantage of you and your pointless ambition.-

She started walking.

-Don't try to run, little girl, you cannot escape us.- The voice laughed and she sensed something materialize in front of her. Something shiny glinted against the faraway street lamps behind her. She turned around and walked the other way, towards the street. If she could only see what she was dealing with, she might be able to escape this. They hissed as they followed her into the lighter area. She walked faster, faster, and soon broke into a run. Why was the street so far away? The shadow demons shrieked with laughter and easily overtook her. She tried to conjure a spell, any spell. A light flickered about her fingertips but soon faded, and she stared at her hand in surprise. The shadows cackled.

-Your magic begins to reject you,- they sneered. -Now we can attack!-

They leapt into the air and flew at her, each brandishing a blade from the air around them. For the first time in years she felt a terrible grip on her mind, the undying anxiety that comes from being utterly defenseless, the sudden stress that causes one's heart to falter in its coursing pulse, the rush of blood to the skin as one prepares to make a run for it. For the first time in years she was afraid.

She dove under the blades and pulled herself off the ground, running. The demons hissed in anger and soared after her, and she had to leap and dive through the air to avoid them, and most importantly, she had to keep running, but she was terribly out of shape since all she ever did was read magic books and her breath was short an haggard after a short distance, but she had to keep going, she had to keep dodging. One appeared at her side and she swerved to the left, then another appeared there and she went back to the right and then in that moment a third caught up to her from behind and his blade pierced her through the stomach, and she tripped and fell forward with a surprised and agonized cry. The blade was removed just as soon as the strike was given and, heaving from exhaustion, she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled forward, slowly at first, regaining momentum, and one of the shadows reached out to grab her and his hand raked across the right side of her face and her skin burned from the contact and she cried out again, and this time she ran. She ran through the middle of the street where, bathed in the light, the demons could not pursue her.

-Oh leave her for now,- the voice was disgusted. -We'll get her later.-

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**I write long chapters because I tend to get ahead of myself on explanations. I tried really hard to avoid repetition for the last couple of paragraphs but maybe my vocabulary is a bit narrower than I thought it was, because the same words kept coming up.**

**You will be happy to learn that the next chapter will be more focused on Vaati, as I myself am getting a bit sick of the presence of my own character.**

**But wait, if she's injured, what about meeting up with Ezlo tomorrow? Will she make it?**

**Please review!**


	3. The Agonizingly Slow Beginning

**I'm trying to update this as much as possible before tomorrow, because that's when school starts for me, and I don't know when I'll be able to update after that.**

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The Elder Sorcerer Ezlo looked up as the door to the workshop swung open. A small boy, perhaps a teenager with silver hair and red eyes, clad in a simple blue tunic, stood in the entryway.

"You must be Vaati," he remarked. "And you are here to accept your apprenticeship."

"Yes, Ezlo-Sensei. I assume Autumn is somewhere here already?"

"Autumn? No, she has not yet arrived. Perhaps we should wait to begin formal introductions until she has, though. I hate repeating myself."

"Huh. I thought she would have been here much earlier." Vaati folded his arms and looked about the workshop. Many unfinished projects were scattered about the side to the left of the door, seemingly organized by difficulty level, while the tables on the other side of the room were clean and waiting to be used.

"Until she arrives, I shall get you settled in. Follow me." The Elder led Vaati up the stairs to a second floor and down the center hallway to the second door on the right. "You may stay here while you are studying under me," he said. "I will provide you with things as you earn them, does that sound fair?"

His tone left little suggestion of negotiation, so there was nothing Vaati could do but nod in agreement.

They waited for a few hours, but she never showed. Ezlo grew noticeably concerned as the time passed, and as 8:30 approached he began to pace. The younger one took note of his unease and with dry resentment wondered just how much the sorcerer had actually wanted two apprentices—and which one he had wanted more.

"It seems she isn't coming," Ezlo said as the clock struck nine, and the disappointment in his voice was like a jackhammer to Vaati's mind. _What's wrong with me? Why can't I be your only apprentice? I'm just as skilled as her, if not better!_ His face bore a faint glare as he looked toward the door, and he dared her to show up now.

"Well, it is her choice after all." The man sighed. "Come, Vaati, I will go over the general rules." He gestured to the cluttered side of the room. "This is my work area. The projects on these tables are not to be touched, no exceptions, do you understand?" Vaati nodded. "Good. On the other side is where your projects will go when we get to them. Until I determine that you are ready to receive instruction, however, you will not be starting anything, you will simply be observing my work and I will explain to you with the best of my ability what's going on. Obviously your room is upstairs, and I'm sure I don't have to stress that you aren't permitted to sneak down here in the middle of the night for any purpose. Some of the projects are extremely delicate, and if handled improperly they will most likely explode, and I'm sure you don't want any of that stuff stuck into your face." Ezlo looked down at the boy. "This will certainly be an interesting adventure," he muttered to himself.

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For the longest time, Ezlo taught Vaati nothing. All he did was send the poor kid on errands; Fetch me this, boy—bring me that. He grew restless, bored even. Instead of staying in his room in the afternoon and studying, like he usually did, he began going on walks outside to keep himself from going insane in that filthy barren room. He had poured the entirety of his efforts into the last few months, and he was given nothing for it!

_Perhaps Ezlo-Sensei doubts my powers. I must find a way to show him, to prove to him that I can actually do something._

Vaati looked up at the sky as it began to rain, then directed his breath at his hair in a huff. He sat in the rain for a while, trying to come up with an excuse to perform magic.

"You should never become too dependent upon magic," Ezlo said.

_Pfft. He spends all his spare time working on some project, and he summons things over to him when he doesn't ask me to get them for him._

Well...He would show Ezlo that he was worth the time and trouble, and that he deserved to know the secrets of magic that had been denied him this whole time. He longed to be acknowledged, renowned, even to be feared was better than this pathetic nonexistence that he now suffered through. He would give the old coot a taste of his power, maybe put a twist in his side with a cold front in the middle of the night. His lips pulled back into a smug grin as he pictured the look Sensei would get on his face if he conjured a great tornado of sorts _just_ for the purpose of impressing him.

Just to practice he sent a blast of wind away from him, and he smiled as leaves and raindrops shot back at his will. With a wave he collected the leaves into a ball and tossed it about in the air, and the rain that flew naturally into the floating orb was caught in the spell. He threw it this way and that, testing his control over it. No leaves fell out, no droplets of water were separated. He made the orb change shapes and dance through space, and he never lost his control. Eventually he grew bored with it and dropped it to the ground.

_I guess I should head back_.

But wait...what was that? He peered through the rain. The orb had fallen near a dark figure slumped against a wall. He approached it warily. The form was covered in a black cloak with the hood drawn, and its arms were folded over its stomach. The water surrounding it was a deep red color that diluted as it spread out. Something was certain. This person, whoever it was, was not alright and needed help. He reached out a placed a hand on the soaked shoulder, and a shudder shook the whole body.

"Ah..May I uh...May I help you?" he asked. _Stupid question,_ he scorned himself. In situations like this you don't _ask_ that, you just do it. In any case it didn't seem like the person would answer comprehensibly, so whether or not he had received consent, with a swoop he slung the person over his shoulder, staggering for a few seconds under the weight, but nevertheless he started back to the workshop.

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**Gee, I wonder who this newcomer is.**

**I didn't do this last chapter, but I think it goes pretty much without saying that I do not own the Legend of Zelda or any of its character; the only character in this story that's mine is Autumn. She is a figment of my imagination.**

**Please review, and if you find any dumb errors, which I was horrified to find while reviewing the last two chapters, do tell. I probably won't fix them right away, but I'll appreciate them being brought to my attention.**


	4. Dafuq?

**Heh...Everything after this chapter is going to be loads of fun.**

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"Great Goddess—child, what is that?" Ezlo made a squeak of surprise upon seeing Vaati and his charge come slowly through the door.

"I don't know who it is but they need help," he said. He dropped the blob onto a clean white table in his side of the room, his hair conveniently hiding the sneer on his face. _My first project,_ he thought, almost giddy from the notion. _If I can do this, maybe Ezlo-Sensei will teach me stuff like complex transformation and advanced weather control!_

The form instinctively rolled to the side and curled up, trying to shield its stomach area.

"Well...If he, or she, is wounded, then to be able to see the wounds we will need to remove the cloak," Ezlo said. Vaati snorted to himself.

_Let's hope that's not the only thing it's wearing._

They struggled to get the figure to lie flat and pulled apart the flaps of the heavy fabric. Where did the person get this cloak anyway? It was really thick for anything that was typically made around this town. They both stared at the stomach. A hole through the shirt left the wound exposed in all its severity, and some black substance seemed to be festering along the edges.

_Come to think of it I'm not too good with healing spells,_ Vaati thought, a bit queasy. Who is this? He pushed the hood back from the person's head. It was already clear by this point that it was female, but he wondered if he would recognize the face. Only the right side was revealed, as the left was bound with some kind of cloth bandage that was knotted behind her ear, and the visible eye was shut, brow furrowed, nose wrinkled, lips curled into a grimace. Ah, that familiar expression of pain. But damn, he had hoped to use the eyes as an identifying factor, as her silver hair was no extraordinary thing. Still though...he felt that this figure was somewhat familiar.

Ezlo coughed. "Um...she's been stabbed, obviously. I have never seen a wound like this in my time in this town, but I'm sure it would have come up sooner or later. I will go get the spellbook, as the appropriate spell for this one has left my memory due to misuse."

_What do you need a spell for, old man?_ Vaati screamed at the retreating elder in his head. He had seen the guy's library! It was HUGE! And no matter how he tried, he couldn't find any form of organization to it; the books were out of order, not on the right shelf, not even in the right section! Ezlo would _never_ find the right spellbook—let alone the right spell—in time to save anyone! He focused his attention back to the girl.

"This is going to hurt," he said. "A lot." He placed his right hand on her stomach and took her hand with his left, feeling a little twang of sympathy for her. He was terribly inexperienced, so he couldn't even count on this going correctly, given his prowess for failing the healing portions of magic assessments. With that, he tried the only thing he knew—the resealing of cells that should connect and the mending of the surface. He could do the skin surface and help get the inside started, but it would have to finish itself. And for all the pain it was causing her, he wasn't even sure if it was worth it—he didn't even _know_ what awaited him beneath the bandage on her head. She squished his fingers in her hand and stiffened at the first feeling of the magic. For an unbearable minute, the spell drove towards its initial purpose, and after that minute the skin had sealed itself back up and only a faint pink scar remained. Her released her suffocating hold on his hand and he flexed his fingers. She was so familiar, but he couldn't think of who she might be. Ezlo walked back in, flipping rapidly through pages in a textbook with a spine about as wide as his own hand, muttering to himself.

"Well, I've found the book, now if only I could remember which page it was on..." His voice trailed off as he turned a few pages back, frowning. The girl sat up and her hand instinctively went to her stomach, and she mumbled something to herself—Vaati guessed it was the remnant of the healing that he had, again, failed to perform. Ezlo looked up finally.

"Wait...what's going on here."

"I healed her, Ezlo-Sensei!" Vaati's face beamed and he watched for the elder's reaction. There was astonishment, a bit of confusion, and he, too, was staring at the girl's face.

"Is that...Autumn?" he asked. She turned her head and looked up.

"Hi, Ezlo," she said.

"What-Autumn? What are you doing here?" Vaat was dumbfounded. The only reason it hadn't occurred to him that it could be was because,well...it's _Autumn_. What was she doing sitting against a wall with a stab wound through her stomach and bandages across her face?

"Obviously you carried me here," she said dully.

"But...you...how come you never showed up for the apprenticeship?" he demanded.

"What do you care, you get to be Ezlo's pet now," she shot back.

"It was fairly evident that the first day that he _really_ wanted you here."

"But you're still here aren't you? He's still running the apprenticeship right? It's not like my presence was absolutely crucial for this."

"Both of you, quit your bickering!" Ezlo yelled. Autumn hopped off of the table and bowed deeply.

"Apologies, Ezlo-Sensei," she muttered. Vaati growled in his head and followed her example.

"First of all, if I had only wanted _one_ of you, I would have only accepted _one_. Second of all, Vaati, you were in no position to take the situation into your own hands, and I doubt she's even healed properly. The next time you find someone almost dead and you decide to bring him or her back with you, you will _wait_ until I have found the proper spell and then _I_ will carry out the task. Even so, the fact remains that you did somehow do it, and that brings me to you, Autumn. You're being horribly rude to him, considering he _did_ manage to save your life, so you owe him quite a list of courtesies." Ezlo's fury was quite terrifying, and they weren't sure which was more of the cause—Vaati's act of disrespect towards Ezlo or Autumn's act of disrespect towards Vaati.

Autumn grumbled to herself and turned to face Vaati, then bowed just as respectfully as she had bowed for Ezlo and mumbled her apologies.

"What the-I don't understand, what is this?" He was astonished and uncomfortable with his astonishment.

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_**An Introduction to General Courtesies in the Context of This Story Part 1, as seen by RedNemi.**_

_**1. When faced with someone whose talent and power are clearly superior to yours, you bow respectfully and receive what words they may choose to say.**_

_**2. You do NOT attack an aggressor unless (s)he strikes first.**_

_** This way you can call it defense when you bash his/her head in.**_

_**3. If someone goes out of their way to aid you, you owe them big time.**_

_** Buy said person an ice cream or something.**_

_**4. If someone for whatever reason goes out their way to SAVE YOUR LIFE, you owe them BIG TIME. As in, expect to serve this person for the rest of your measly existence, because that's how long it'll take to pay off that debt.**_

_** In that case, you regard this person who saved your life as if (s)he is more talented and powerful than you, even if (s)he isn't, and you bow respectfully when face with him/her.**_

_** You NEVER contradict this person.**_

_** You go out of your way to make sure that no harm comes to this person, no matter how much you feel (s)he may deserve it.**_

_** I mean seriously, just read the main rule. You're serving the guy for the rest of your life.**_

**And now, on to the story! Oh dear, I may have spoiled it for you...Ok, I'll just put this at the end of the chapter instead of the beginning!**

**Thanks for reading, please review! **


	5. Unprecedented Consequences

"Isn't it obvious?" Autumn asked, straightened up after a few moments.

"I don't even understand how we got to be in this situation, how can I understand the result of a simple healing spell?"

Autumn and Ezlo exchanged glances.

"Well...since you were kind..." her nose wrinkled at the word, "...enough to go out of your way to bring me here and heal me, not even knowing who I was, I uh..."

"Say it," Ezlo said, warning in his voice. She bowed her head as if ashamed.

"I owe you that much and thus must spend some time in your servitude."

"Not just 'some time' Autumn, tell him the truth."

"He doesn't need to know that," she grumbled.

"But he deserves to know the extent of the deal here."

"What deal? I didn't ask for this!"

"Neither did he! He doesn't even know what he's doing, so he has to learn that actions have consequences."

"What kind of lesson will this teach him?"

"That since healing someone is supposed to be a good thing, the consequences are usually good."

"Not if I'm the one he's healing!"

"And why do you say that?" He narrowed his eyes at her and folded his arms.

"Because well...I..." She stammered some nonsensical thing and looked completely hopeless.

"If you can't come up with a good reason, then tell him the extent of your role here."

She looked back up at him with an expression of complete distaste.

"Until the end of your miserable life, I am bound to you. Until your body decays and returns its nutrients to the ground, I am to serve and obey you. Unless I die first, and let's hope that happens."

Vaati registered this, and as he did a slow smile spread across his face.

"Really now?" he said. "Why do you look so upset about this? I mean, I _might_ take advantage of that at a later time, but really, it's not like you can blame anybody."

She glared at him. "I can blame you for not leaving me there to _die_ like everyone else did. No one helps a dying stranger! You know that! There could be repercussions!"

"Like having to serve the one who healed you for the rest of eternity?" Vaati's smirk was snide and annoying, and she itched to wipe it off of his face with a big, satisfying slap. Her fingers twitched at the thought, but alas, not only was he on the other side of the table, but as it was she was no longer capable of hurting him.

"You may also dismiss her at any time if you wish," Ezlo said.

"And not for the rest of eternity, just until you die." Autumn was very adamant about this part.

"But the fact remains that you serve me for the rest of our time together." Vaati laughed to himself.

"We can discuss this in more depth later, ok? For right now, we're wasting time. Autumn, you are welcome to stay and join in the apprenticeship, since you're here and probably staying."

"Really?" The concept lifted her mood a bit. "Great!"

"Come upstairs and I will give you a room." Ezlo led her upstairs and down the center hallway to the first door to the right. The room was like Vaati's—undecorated except for a single bed on the far wall, a bookshelf, and a desk with a swivel chair.

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Ezlo seemed excited about something. It made them both suspicious and wary.

"Since I have two of you now...I have an excuse to do this!" He clapped his hands and with a burst of light their clothes changed, to their respective gasps of surprise and annoyance. They both wore purple tunics with golden belts clasped by red, circular, eye-like buckles over red pants tucked into some form of red sandal that wrapped around their calves, with purple cloaks to top it off. They both stared at him with bland expressions.

"What?" Ezlo asked innocently. "I want people to know that you two serve the same function as my apprentices, that way they don't get confused. It's a simple uniform, really."

They exchanged glances.

"Ezlo-Sensei, we look like clones," Autumn said dryly.

"That, I'm afraid, is only because you did something to your eye and you won't let us look at it, my dear. If you would let us determine the diagnosis of the right side of your face and fix it, you would be able to return to something of a regular hairstyle, and then you wouldn't look so similar."

"But why do we need to look the same?"

"Because you're doing the same thing, that being studying under me. It's like sponsored armies dressing in designated costumes while preparing to fight for their lives, except with less war and death and more magic."

"Wonderful."

* * *

**I'm afraid the second half of this chapter was mostly a sidequest for amusement, and in that case I probably didn't do very well because the only thing that's really amusing, to me at least, is how annoying it is to the OC.**

**This one also feels really short to me.**

**Well...methinks next chapter we'll find out what happened between Autumn and the demons, now that I think I have it figured out, and then we'll start actually going through the plotline of the game this is supposed to be based on. I'm sorry it's taking so long.**

**In any case, please leave a review on your way out! I need feedback! Please, give me feedback!**


	6. Demons and Sky Diving!

**Hello, everyone! There shall be much Autumn spoiling in this chapter. To compensate I'll make the next chapter all about Vaati spoiling, and Ezlo can remain unspoiled.**

* * *

"What were you doing out there?" Ezlo asked finally. Autumn paused from explaining to Vaati how to coordinate a cloud of needles and looked up.

"Out where?"

"Wherever it was Vaati found you. What happened? Did it have anything to do with why you didn't come for the first day?"

"Um...I don't really want to talk about that."

"Well...I'm curious about what warranted your condition."

"That doesn't mean I have to tell you."

"You'll tell me, right?" Vaati grinned, and she glared across the table at him.

"You might have brilliant advantage of owning my soul, but you could at least respect my wishes," she spat. "Now pay attention..."

That was the end of that conversation, but it brought back the memories that she hadn't quite forgotten, but had definitely tried hard not to think about.

-line break thing goes here-

/inserting flashback/

The shadows disappeared in the night and she collapsed on the ground somewhere outside a building. She couldn't see out of her right eye, so she felt around her face to try and gauge how badly off it was. The skin that the demon's hand had touched felt slimy and gross, but she didn't exactly carry a mirror with her so she could see.

_Is my magic really rejecting me?_ She wondered, and tried a simple light spell that flickered briefly and faded, but when she tried the darkness a black cloud immediately surrounded her. _It figures._ But then she came to a realization and immediately tried to drive it away, but the cackling demons leapt from the surrounding air and lifted her up, transporting her to a foreign realm.

The shadow realm is a timeless place—other dimensions have a set rate of time that never changes, but where the demons lurk, they don't care for schedules, and so they have no time. If a dark being comes to collect your soul, does he really care if you're in the middle of a date, or if you're about to make a breakthrough in some field of study? No, he simply comes and goes when the going suits his fancy and when it is most convenient for himself, and by that logic would his home even need any sort of clock to regulate his life?

This timeless dimension is where she found herself when she woke, having blacked out from crossing the barrier between the two. She was basically immobile due to a strange heavy cloak that had been draped about her person and the hood drawn, but she could see through a small hole that was not covered, though she might have been able to see more if the right side of her face weren't visually crippled. Come to think of it, it felt like there was something around that side, and it made her head throb somewhat. In another room, the demons who found her were fighting over which would get to possess her body when it came to that point.

-It is I who first inflicted the blow that slowed her,- one said. -I should be the one to possess her.-

-No! I am the one who found her and called her to your attention! By rights I should have her!-

-Shut up, nitwit, if you had really wanted her you wouldn't have told us about her.-

-I thought you might like to know!-

-I said SHUT UP!-

The two demons growled at each other and began to fight, bouncing against walls and damaging the structure of the tower they were in.

-Will you two quit fighting? You _always_ fight over _everything_.- A third sounded tired, floating somewhere off to the left out of her sight. It was hard to follow who was saying what, since they didn't have tangible mouths and so could only speak through the mind.

-I believe she is already mine,- one giggled, also out of her sight. The fighting shadows stopped.

-What makes you say that?- The one who had originally claimed her released a low snarl.

-I say that because it is I who set my Curse of Possession to work its way through her system before she made off into the light. While you pinheads scrambled to stop her retreat and injure her body, I figured I would help with some decision making here and simply ensure my own right to the possession of her body.- The voice was smug.

-Why you...- The other demons gathered round.

-Oh, don't make such a fuss over me. She's awake you know.-

With a faint _whoosh_ the shadows flew over into the room where she was left.

-Since you've so greedily taken the rights to her physical form, you will have no part in the consumption of her soul,- the first said with disgust lining his tone.

-That's fine by me,- the crafty shadow said cheerfully. The others slowly manifested themselves and began to pick her up and lift her high into the air, and though she tried to kick herself free of their grasp, she was unable to. Then they dropped her and she screamed, and they caught her just inches from the ground and lifted her up again, to repeat the same process.

-Do you think she's scared enough yet?-

-No! Keep going! This is fun!- And they cackled as they released her for another fall, and when they collected her up again, she was shaking, and she kicked harder and twisted and turned in their arms.

-I think she's ready.-

"Let...me...GO!" She screamed, and a blinding golden light burst from her and sent the demons carrying her flying as they shrieked in surprise and anger. She dropped to the ground and fell unconscious.

There was a snicker.

-Well, that was interesting, to say the least.- The demon that had claimed her approached with a grin that quickly turned sour, -But as you are now I can't even collect your soul for myself. You've made things terribly inconvenient.- It growled. -I suppose I will return you to your pathetic world of light, but I'll be back for you.- It gathered her up, cloak and all, and took her back to the place where they had found her the second time.

* * *

**Ok, um...yeah. There are probably a million mistakes in this thing but I'm trying to get the story updated again before I leave for school heh. Her soul is safe for now...**

**Oh! With the dropping-her-from-high-altitudes thing, the idea that made sense to me was that for the soul to come freely to an invasive species, the victim must be scared out of his/her wits, thus losing subconscious control of any life-maintaining parts of themselves that don't double as organs. That probably makes no sense to you but it worked in my head...**

**I don't really like this chapter because it leaves much to be desired, but feel free to ask questions and I'll answer those questions in future chapters.**

**Please review!**


	7. Pranks and Punishment

**Ok, the last chapter was full of spelling errors and other embarrassments, so HOPEFULLY if I get to publishing this before school tomorrow I'll spend more time on proofreading. I had a four-hour distraction so by the time I got home I had to go to bed pretty much right away in order to wake up on time, so yeah. Apparently my first four class periods' worth of time don't start filling themselves until Monday though, so I was able to think about the next chapter for my lovely dark fanfiction. Anyway...Enough of my dumb life.**

**Spoiling Autumn is easier than spoiling Vaati. Why? Because Autumn is entirely in my head, whereas Vaati comes with a distinct personality that I have to emulate at some point, and to do that I have to make him develop into that, and since I'm planning on starting with the Minish Cap plotline next chapter—horribly late, I know—I have to do all that character development THIS chapter.**

**It'll be long, and hard, and painful, and most likely riddled with grammatical obscenities. I'll try to keep that to a minimum though.**

**And now, onto the chapter!**

* * *

The Sensei was sitting, unsuspecting, in the side room connected to the apprentices' side of the main workshop in a comfy chair, reading a newspaper. Vaati gestured to Autumn and she stole silently up to the doorway, pressed flat against the wall.

"Why do I have to do this again?" she hissed.

"Because you're better at it." Vaati snickered quietly. She groaned softly to herself and melted into the floor, and he watched her blob form move slowly over the white stone, then reassemble her form behind the chair. She loomed over him, raising her arms over her head and letting them dangle a bit, and she inched her face closer and closer to the side of his head. He turned his head a little bit and saw her out of the corner, but didn't think about it for a second, then frowned and looked to see what was there, but she had ducked behind the chair. He settled back into his chair after a few moments and she raised herself to the other side, a malevolent, tooth-bearing grin on her face. This time when he looked she didn't move, and he jumped to his feet with a startled "Oh!" He backed toward the doorway with his hand over his heart.

"Autumn, child, what are you doing, trying to give me a heart attack?" he demanded. He turned to step through to the next room, but while he was turned around Vaati had stepped in the way and crowded the small space, so that when the elder turned around, space that had been clear before was suddenly filled with his other apprentice with an expression mirroring that of Autumn's. He jumped backwards with another startled cry and Autumn and Vaati doubled over with laughter.

"You miserable wretches!" Ezlo roared. "You think this is funny! You think playing tricks on your host is a beneficial pastime!" Vaati was doubled over.

"You...should see...your face," he gasped.

"What do you think this is?" Ezlo screeched. "I'm VERY disappointed in BOTH of you! I would have thought you would be more well-mannered than that, more mature! That was very childish of you!"

Autumn was still snickering quietly to herself. He observed the two of them, red in the face and obviously very smug with themselves.

"Since you seem to still have no grasp of the concept that actions have consequences," he growled, "you will not be helping me with my next project, though I had planned to leave certain sections for you to develop and perfect. I had _hoped_ that you would be able to do this, but if you can't even take an apprenticeship seriously, you will never take any project of mine seriously enough to do it and do it _well_."

Vaati immediately shut his mouth and stopped laughing.

"But...the hat project."

"No buts, you fool, now get out of my way, I have work to do." The old man glowered at the boy, but Vaati did not shivered in respectful fear, he simple stepped to the side and watched Ezlo proceed through the doorway with something of contempt on his face. The moment he turned to look back into the room Autumn swung her fist up and pointed a finger at him.

"This is ALL your fault," she snarled. "If you hadn't gotten it into your foul, self-absorbed mind that life is _boring_ around here and hey, let's go scare Ezlo out of his wits, we wouldn't STILL be in the you-can't-do-anything-you-just-sit-and-watch phase."

"Oh, don't put this all off on me," he said with disgust. "You enjoyed it just as much as I did."

"Ah, but it was your idea."

"And you went through with it! You didn't have to!"

She almost punched him right in the jaw for saying that. Did he _forget_ that stupid little 'contract' they had unwillingly signed, even though no document was given?

"You know very well why I did it!"

"But you still laughed. You still enjoyed it. Come _on_ Autumn, don't think I don't know you. What, you can stalk some freshman down the hall of the high school and scare him into shutting his locker on himself and crapping his pants but you can't pull a prank on Ezlo? You can set fire to the playground fence, knowing full well that the children inside won't think things through and freak out, and be scarred for life from the incident, but heaven _forbid_ you hide behind a teacher?" Vaati's voice was low and dark.

"There's a difference between a prank and blatant disobedience to a respected adult," she spat. "I have no respect for children and that freshman was getting on my nerves and quite frankly deserved the humiliation. Ezlo said specifically not to bother him when he was taking a break!"

"That's practically begging for disruption!"

"But you should know why he asked for it!"

"Both of you, shut up! You're brattish voices are keeping me from concentrating!" Ezlo yelled, but they ignored him.

"It's not my fault he has no sense of humor," Vaati seethed. "He could have at least realized we had pranked him and laughed at himself."

"Why should he—we're invading his privacy, his personal space, not to mention COMPLETELY disrespecting his wishes."

"Will you quit it with the respect crap? That's really hard to picture coming from you, considering you probably abandoned any sense of it just so you could beat up a couple kids who bothered you when you were a kid." He threw it at her to see her reaction. She tensed, and he smiled, having struck a nerve. She was so adorably trying to maintain the perimeters of the relationship and not destroy him for having said that. Look at her! He could practically feel her teeth grinding in her head.

"What, did they hurt your feelings? Did they make you upset? Oh!" He mocked a gasp. "Did they call you mean, nasty names?" His voice was sugar-coated and condescending. She began to shake with her fury.

"At least I didn't have to move from my previous home because of it," she screamed, "at least I didn't turn into an emo shit who did nothing but mope around and whine to my mommy because I felt neglected, at least I did something about it. You? You did nothing! You made your parents deal with it for you! At least I _grew up_!"

He was speechless for a few moments after the outburst. The thought didn't even occur to him that she shouldn't know that about him, all he cared about was the fact that she had put it up in front of his face.

"You little BITCH!" He hissed, and his fist came up and knocked her right up the jaw, and his other fist met her face in the air from the side. As she fell to the ground she braced herself on her hands and swung her feet around and kicked him in the shin and knocked his feet out from under him, then she jumped to her feet and grabbed him by the back of the cloak and swung him around and slammed him into the wall, to which he staggered backwards for a second, then ducked to avoid being boxed in the ears and pushed her back into the wall and picked her up and he started spinning and spinning, and when he released her she crashed into the chair and knocked it over and rolled into the far wall, crashing headfirst into the structure. She pulled herself slowly to her feet and he seized her by the throat and raised her up in the air. She clawed at his fingers, tried to kick him but her legs couldn't quite reach. He was _smiling_. Her eyes watered as she tried desperately to continue breathing. He could sense her fear at that moment, and it felt _wonderful_.

"Vaati!" Ezlo roared. "You put her down this instant!"

He woke from his trance and snapped his head to look in Ezlo's direction, and very deliberately dropped her to the floor.

"Both of you get out of here! And stay _out_ of each others' sight! That's an order!"

Vaati walked calmly from the house. When Autumn rose, rubbing her head with an expression of undying hatred on her face, she went up the stairs to her room and didn't come back down.

* * *

Later in the day, when they were all in better moods with each other, they gathered in the workshop area for Ezlo to explain his latest project.

"This, children, is what we call a hat," he began, holding up a red triangle with gold lining and a red gem. "If it were a normal hat, I would have nothing to work with, but this handy dandy gem here provides potential for magical infusion—can anyone hazard a guess as to what that is?"

"I'm assuming it means you can cram some of your power into the red rock embedded in the lining?" Vaati asked.

"Yes." Ezlo placed the hat on the table gem-up, and held his hands a short distance over it and began muttering to himself. Vaati observed with interest. He never would have thought of giving power to a _hat_ of all things. He wondered what it was for.

"Ezlo-Sensei, what are you going to do with this?" he asked, his tone suggesting that he felt the project bore no actual purpose other than to spite the apprentices for being annoying.

"Psh, you _know_ what it's for, Vaati. I explained it to both of you yesterday."

"Refresh my memory?"

Ezlo sighed, "Ugh, what am I going to do with you, child? Alright. This hat is going to be a gift for the humans that dwell in the land of Hyrule, a place to which I only gain access about once a century. It's very annoying. Fortunately that 'once a century' is a few days from now."

"The humans? Why them?"

"Because as an old fart I am able to appreciate some of their greater projects and realize that they could use some help every now and then. Since they don't use magic in their daily lives, they could use a tool such as this."

"What's it going to be like when it's done?"

"It will grant the wishes of the one who wears it, no matter what the state of his heart is. I wish I could fix that, but it's not really fair to make it so that only pure humans can use it—I mean, every human has at least a little evil inside. As it is, this is a good start. I can't make it all at once or it would fall apart from the sudden addition of all that power. Now, I don't care what you do for the next couple hours, but please, _don't_ start throwing each other all over the house and breaking walls and furniture and stuff like you were trying to earlier—not only did much of this cost _a lot_ of money, but this project is very unstable right now, and it will crumple and fail easily, and if it does I will be _very_ angry." His voice grew darker and he took on a glowering facial expression as he spoke.

"Yes, Ezlo-Sensei," they said simultaneously.

* * *

**Ok! Next chapter we get to start on the actual plotline of the game. If you haven't played it and are reading this just because, don't worry, I'll try to explain the general points of the game to the best of my ability, but since this isn't really focusing on Link's part of the quest most of the points I make will be made up.**

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**


	8. The End of the Beginning

**Pfffft I love how I was all "I have to do all my character development in one chapter" and all I did was make Vaati beat up Autumn for hating on his sensitive past. I think due to the argument and the short-lived fight and expressing their hatred toward each other is one of the reasons that that chapter is my favorite thus far.**

**But anyway, that was that chapter, this is this chapter, and I have NO reason to be patting myself on the back. -shudders- must...proofread...**

**I'm going to enjoy writing this now that I've gotten this far in.**

* * *

Ezlo had _told_ them not to venture from their rooms at night, a condition which Autumn didn't obey only because Vaati was too dumb to obey it himself. He crept from his room and down the stairs and woke her up in the process, so she followed him to see what kind of madness he was trying to get himself into. He moved softly into the project area, mumbling things to himself. He had done this each night for the past three, and all he had done was stare at something, though she didn't dare guess what it was. And he had locked himself in his room during the free hours Ezlo gave them with hordes of encyclopedias and novels written by prominent sorcerers such as Ezlo himself and apparently he'd actually been reading them, not just pretending this time. What was he researching?

-Ultimate sources of power, I should think,- said the shadowy voice, and she whirled around in the hallway to face him.

"Ugh, won't you just leave me alone?" she groaned, pushing the door to her room open and entering. She tried to shut the door on the demon, but the wooden structure simply moved through it.

-Won't you just hold still and let me see something?- it asked. -Oh, and stop referring to me as 'it,' I find it terribly insulting. Until I decide to consume your soul and assume possession of your physical form, you may call me Nadir.- Without waiting for a response, it flowed into her head and planted a hand into either side of her brain, and in doing so seized control. -This is only temporary, I assure you. Because most of the details about you are denied me for some odd reason, I have to look through your memories and knowledge myself and deduce what I can. Since your soul is still here to repel me the area here is quite toxic.-

She couldn't respond even if she wanted to—it had control of her every move.

-And really, please don't refer to me as 'it.'-

A few moments later..._he_...flowed from her head with a maniacal grin on his face. -You're in luck.- His voice was giggly. -It seems that with the things they are now, you're life is more interesting to me with you in control of it. Hehee! I can't wait for the way this will turn out. Hey, I'll cut you a deal...since I'm _not_ taking your soul or your body yet, you'll let me live inside of you, that way I don't have to trail around you all the time like a lost puppy. There'll be advantages. I can tell you the secrets of the world, like I did the other day with your little buddy.-

"That was _you_?"

-So? What'll it be?- He completely disregarded her question.

"How would you stay with me if the area inside my head is toxic to you?" She folded her arms, believing that she'd saved herself from carrying a demon around. He grinned.

-As I recall, there is a reason your face is bandaged,- and he reached out and yanked the cloth from her head and she muffled a short cry of surprise. He inspected her face. -Yes, this will suffice. My Curse is still intact, since you were smart enough to hide it with your hair as well as the bandage and you didn't expose it to any natural light. I can live inside the right side of your face, and I will tell you of things when the telling seems convenient. For example, what your buddy, Vaati I guess his name is, is doing right now is taking the hat that Ezlo has worked on so hard and placing it upon his own head.-

"WHAT?"

The demon cackled and flowed into the black marks on her face as she burst from her room and half-ran, half fell down the stairs.

"Vaati! What do you think you're doing?"

He jumped and whirled around, then snickered at her.

"My slave! The one who must ensure my well-being! I'm so happy that you found out about this before Ezlo!"

She folded her arms with a glare. "You should be able to ensure your own well-being now, doofus. What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?" His tone returned to its developed disgust and condescendence. "I'm taking the Wishing Cap for myself and preparing to take off with it."

She sighed. "I guess I should have expected this. You've been so...infatuated...with it."

"Ah, good, you ARE still smart! I was beginning to think I'd lost you the other day, bringing up hushed stories like that." He shook his head at her. "Nevertheless, I will be leaving now. It is my will that-"

"Vaati!" Ezlo interrupted him.

"Ezlo-Sensei!"

"What are you doing?" Ezlo saw him and deduced the answer to his own question and screeched, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, CHILD?"

"Um, I believe that term is a bit incorrect, Sensei. You see, this hat has granted me the ability to see things as they are, and you've been quite disrespectful yourself. Myself and Autumn—we're older and more mature than you make us out to be, what with you always referring to us as 'child' and 'young one' and in general you seem to try to act more like a parent than a teacher. It's quite disturbing to me."

"Take the hat off."

"Why would I do that? It's so wonderful, and it gives me such a rush of adrenaline, not only to know that I am capable of so much more now, but to know that I will no longer sit at the bottom like a deadweight on a convicted person thrown into a river. No longer will I remain unknown, unacknowledged, no more will I have to live in this pathetic house you call a workshop, no more will I have to take orders from you, and no more will I have to remain in this forsaken place. A source of unlimited power is said to lie in this place you call 'Hyrule,' and I intend to claim it for myself." His voice was positively giddy as he relayed this plan to his teacher. "And with that power at my disposal, I shall seize control of that world and rule over it like a god!"

Autumn groaned to herself. The guy was completely insane now.

"Hm...but as you are, you will most likely only hinder me. I suspect you plan to follow and try to inhibit my plans. That won't do...hold still." He held his hands a short distance apart and a blue beam of light shot from the center of that space to Ezlo and it knocked him over, and his form sort of phased between visible and invisible, and then it shifted down into a plump green hat. Vaati laughed. "It is quite fitting that you should become the object of your own obsession," he said, then he turned to her. "Something tells me that you will also manage to get in my way somehow."

"Don't even think about turning me into a hat," she snarled, her voice much lower and much more fearsome than she had intended it to be. He blinked at her for a second and scratched his head.

"Right...I wouldn't dream of it," he said. "But I will turn you into something." He grinned again and another beam of light burst from the space between his hands and wrapped itself around her, but she impatiently swatted it away.

"Run along, wind mage," she growled. "I have better things to do with my time than indulge myself in being experimented on with your petty magics. Really, that portal is running low on time, so you better move fast if you want to get there before it closes."

Vaati blinked at her again, then phased away.

"Now why does he listen to you?" Ezlo fumed. "I'm his teacher! You're just a girl! Why can't he be respectful and take others' wishes into account?"

"Well, he's certainly taking his own wishes into account, that's for sure," she muttered.

"Let's go Autumn, we have to go, we have to stop him!"

"I don't-"

"Screw that dumb contract thing! He's evil, therefore you should do all you can to keep him from achieving this status that he seeks to obtain."

"Um...weren't you the one who was stressing its importance?"

"That's beside the point! Maybe later, if he has proved himself changed into the student he _used_ to be, the one who picked up a dying stranger in the middle of the street and healed without reason, maybe then he will be worth the effort. But for right now, we have to get that hat off of his head!"

"Alright then...Shall we?" Autumn picked up the bouncing green form and they, too, phased out of there.

* * *

**That's all for this chapter. By the way, with the whole 'phasing' thing. Whenever I play the Minish Cap, when Vaati does his whole teleportation thing the little sound effect they play always made me think of the words 'phase' and 'shift,' so I will refer to the action as both for most of the time. The same thing goes for when Ezlo was turned into a hat—the sound effect made me think of a word, and I have attributed the word to that event in the story ever since.**

**Thanks for reading, please review!**


	9. Prison Break

It took her a while to find the portal, one because Ezlo gave cryptic directions, two because it was still dark out. And when they finally DID get through the portal, some weird thing happened and they got separated.

The point is, when Autumn finally pulled herself off of the ground, taking note that she was surrounded by well-groomed bushes and cut grass, she was alone and in a strange land. Not far off to the right a large castle of stone rose ominously from the ground, and on the front steps stood a large man in red robes and a crown, a young girl with long blond hair and a pink dress, a child with unkempt blond hair and a green tunic and a hideous shield, and an old man with circular glasses and a mustache. She did not recognize any of these people.

The old man with the mustache spoke. "Let the ceremony begin! Vaati, winner of the sword tournament, you may approach the blade!"

The group on the steps seemed very foolishly excited about this proceeding. She scoffed at his stupidity. All he had to was _ask_, really, and she could tell him exactly where the stupid thing was that he was looking for, though there was something of a catch to that. As he approached the spot where she hid, he glanced over at her and bared a fang in a smug, triumphant smile, and his gait became slower and more dignified.

_Show off,_ she thought spitefully. Just then two fingers tapped her harshly on the shoulder, and she turned to see two soldiers, looking particularly angry with her, and they took her by the elbows and dragged her to some sort of side entrance to the castle and down into the dungeons, where they dropped her in a cell and slammed the door shut.

_Well...this certainly isn't what I was expecting to happen._ She sat on a bench leaning against the wall beside the door and waited. After about ten minutes, there was a clamor of steps as a mob of soldiers rushed down the stairs and gathered around her cell.

"Is it true what the head of the guard says? Are you really his sister?"

"Are you here to help him?"

"Heh, if she is then she's pretty darn useless now!"

"I wouldn't count on that," she said darkly. The soldiers fell silent.

"Why not? You're imprisoned now, you can't escape."

She laughed, but not in humor. "I'm a sorceress, sir. I can do whatever I want." She reached through the pars and took hold of the collar of his tunic and yanked him into the cell with her. "Do you really think I can't escape now?" she hissed. The guard's eyes grew wide and his pupils shrank in fear. She saw this and grinned. "Don't ever, ever, EVER insinuate again that that blockhead and I are related again," she snarled. "Don't insult me." She shoved him back through the bars with a look of disgust.

"But then...why are you here?"

"I'm not _supposed_ to be here. The only reason I am is because Vaati decided that this month was a great month to start his period and be all bitchy most of the time. I'm just here to get him and kick him back to the miserable world whence we came, and maybe I'll be able to kick some sense into him while I'm at it." She sighed. "But I'm not here to scare you, I'm not here to spend my time holed up in a dungeon, I'm not here to kill anyone. I'm just here to leave. That said, I suspect I will be fetched soon, and in that case you might want to take a five minute break or something like, right now."

"What? Why? Why should we take advice from you?"

"Because the person fetching me probably won't appreciate your presence." She glared at them. "_I_ may not be here to kill you, but _he_ certainly is."

"'He'?"

"She means Vaati, man. Let's get outta here."

"No! I refuse to believe this! You're here to help him, and you want us to let you go based on your own word."

"I don't want you to do anything but get out of here! Really, are all of you so reluctant to take a break? It's a simple request. You'll be leaving me alone, and if you come back and I'm still here, then I'll shrug and say you told me so and we'll leave it at that, ok? Now scat! I'd like to get through this with as few casualties as possible."

The guards looked at one another uncomfortably.

"Should we? I mean..if he's really coming...we don't have our swords, Lord."

"True. Alright. We'll take your word for it and leave for a few minutes."

Barely had the last soldier passed through the door to the higher level when there was a strange noise and Vaati was standing outside her cell.

"You know, for all you're supposed to be really really scary because you're so good with magic, blah blah blah, I don't really understand how you can't get yourself out of a cage built by humans," he said, handing her a key ring.

"You know, for all you're supposed to be really really scary because you have a magical bag of cloth on your head, I don't really understand how you can't get me out of a cage built by humans," she shot back, inspecting the keys one at a time.

"True."

She passed the ring back to him with one singled out. "Try this one."

He looked at it skeptically and pushed it into the lock on her door, and it slid open. She grinned.

"Almost like I knew what I was doing, eh?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he grumbled, then held out his hand. "Come on, get up."

"Aw, but it's comfy down here." She made a pouty face. "Do I have to?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Prove it."

"Autumn, please don't make me hit you."

"Really though, it is pretty comfy down here."

"You would find stone comfortable, I suppose."

"What if I don't want to go."

He glared at her. "Autumn, I command you to stand up and come with me, lest you suffer my wrath."

She grinned again. "That's more like it," she said through her teeth, and she rose and touched his shoulder, pushing his outstretched hand away from her with distaste, and together they phased away.

* * *

Landing somewhere in the Hyrule field on a hill, Vaati immediately walked away and flopped onto the grass with a heavy sigh.

"A simple 'thank you' will suffice," he called.

"Why do I have to thank you for that?"

"Because."

"Why?"

"Just because."

He raised a hand and started making shapes in the clouds. She watched him. If he knew what he was doing, he didn't even need her, and that was probably why he had initially chosen to leave her behind in the first place. The portal was only open for a short period of time, and here he was, wasting time, not only that but he had taken time out of his quest to get her out of jail. Something clicked in her head.

"You need help," she said with a twang of disgust.

"What?" He snapped his head up to look accusingly at her.

"Your search isn't going very well, is it? All that research you did, and you don't have a clue what to do." She sat down a safe distance away from him and waited for a response. He leaned his head back on the ground.

"Well...the textbooks I had weren't the most helpful of things. They told of the resting region of the power and what it's potential was, but they said nothing about where it was actually housed at the moment."

"And you think _I _can help you with that?"

"What, did you expect me to just leave you in the dungeon?"

"Yeah, I kinda did."

He looked over at her with a blank expression on his face, then pulled himself up and gestured for her to do the same.

"I don't suppose you know where it is?"

"If I said yes, would you tell me to tell you?"

"Probably. Considering I only have a day to find it if I want to get back to Minishland and wreak some kind of havoc there, it would be pretty darn convenient."

"Yeah, it would be."

"So, do you know?"

"How 'bout this, I just won't say anything and you can think things through for yourself some more, eh?"

He groaned, "God you're pretty much useless, aren't you? I should just-"

"Let me go?" Her grin was wide and tooth baring and she leaned forward and peered into his face. "You can dismiss me at any time you know, and I'll leave and I won't come back."

"I doubt that."

"I don't. I won't even glance over my shoulder at you when I teleport out of here."

"You'd come back to visit."

"Don't think you know me and can predict my actions, Vaati. You'll be sadly surprised."

He glared at her smug grin and blew his breath out onto her ear to get her to back away from him, uncomfortable with the close proximity of their faces.

"In any case, there's an ice cavern somewhere in a nearby lake that's supposed to have some kind of gigantic ice wall mural that will tell us what exactly it is I'm looking for."

He held his hand out to her again, but she just stared at him.

"What?"

"You...You don't know?" Her voice quivered.

"Don't know what."

"You're here seeking supremacy and you don't even know what it is you're looking for?" Towards the end she started yelling.

"Do you?"

"Of course I do! But now I'm not telling you; I refuse to make this easy for you!"

His face hardened and he slapped her one across the face with one hand and grabbed her by the elbow in the other.

"Let's just go," he growled.

* * *

**I'm enjoying this part, if you can't tell.**

**Autumn is pissed right now heh.**

**Just asking, but while they're in the ice cavern should I get them into another argument and throw them around and bash them into walls again? That was kinda fun last time.**

**Thanks for reading, please review!**


	10. Which One Do I Kill First?

They stood before a circular sheet of ice about as wide in diameter as Vaati was tall, and there was a gigantic crack in the center of it.

"Have you ever done this before?" he asked her. Autumn snorted.

"Vaati, I've never even been to this place before, what makes you think I know how to use its portals?"

"I dunno, you seem to know a whole heck of a lot about everything else, I figured maybe you would have a clue what to do here." He took a hesitant step forward onto the ice, and she caught his flailing arms as he slipped on the surface.

"But I thought maybe it would be common sense that you have to balance properly," she muttered, "you were leaning _way_ too far forward."

"Yeah, whatever," he snapped. He'd had about enough of her toying with him ever since he had gone to get her. "Just get over here, ok? I didn't ask for your input."

"Ok." She stepped onto the ice with him, still holding his arms as a grounding for her own lack of balance. When they stopped moving a string of light trailed around them and split off into a series of characters from the Minish written language, and soon they were sucked through the portal and dropped into the temple. She dropped his arms and took a few steps down the stairs, but he didn't follow. The only thing he noticed was how cold it was. He could feel his core temperature dropping fast. He put a foot forward and sat down, clutching his cloak closer to himself, trying really hard not to look weak. She turned around.

"Hey, what's-"

"DON'T LOOK AT ME." His voice cracked in the cold and he couldn't even make himself _sound_ scary.

Contradictory to his demand, she looked at him for about half a minute with a calculating expression that he didn't like. She sighed and reached down and took him by the arm and pulled him up.

"Come on, sir," she said in a quiet voice. "We can't have you freezing to the stairs now." She unclasped her own cloak and swung it around him, mumbling something he couldn't quite understand, then fastening the clasp again. "Better?"

Indeed, he was mobile once more.

"Aren't you cold?"

"Doesn't matter. You're the one trying to take over the world here." She turned around and continued down the stairs. With a spiteful glare he followed her through a cavity in the wall into a large room lit by a hole in the above ceiling, and in the center of the room floated a strangely shaped blue thing.

"And over here you will find your legend," she said, pointing to a long row of ice sculptures and engraved tablets. He walked over to it. A thought occurred to him and he turned around to face her.

"What were you thinking about earlier?" he asked.

"In the context of what?"

"Before you gave me the cloak. You were thinking about something, what was it?"

"That's hardly relevant."

"I bet you were thinking how weak I am, affected by the cold as apparently you are not," he grumbled. "I bet you were thinking how _you_ should be the one commanding and _I_ should be the one serving. I bet you were thinking how completely dumb this whole situation is."

"It _is_ pretty dumb," she admitted, "but that's not what I was thinking about. Truth be told I wasn't thinking about you at all, so if that's what you're asking, there you go." She picked up the floating blue thing, muttering to herself, and he turned his attention back to the engravings on the wall.

"Ok, now I know what it is and a place that will tell me _where_ it is. Since you seem to know this already, would you mind telling me this time?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yes. Maybe. If you tell me this first-"

Vaati groaned, and she took on a lecturing tone.

"What exactly are you hoping to gain by claiming this? It was granted to the humans so that they could banish evil from their realm and live in peace, something all races wish to do regardless of size or ambition. Taking it from them will rob them of all hope of ever living in peace if they should be plagued again."  
"So?"  
"You have plenty of potential with just the Wishing Cap, which I think was just Ezlo trying to be nice. Any human would try to exploit it as you are now, except, without some understanding of the basics of magic, I think they would probably just wind up destroying themselves."  
"You're saying I don't need the Light Force."  
"You don't. Anyone who tries to disrupt the decision of the Goddess Hylia is likely to fall subject to terrible curses and self-destruction. See, when you um...when you perform lots of magic...ugh. The younger you start, the more powerful you become, the more susceptible you are to corruption, let's leave it at that. Over the years, you develop a tolerance, but not nearly quickly enough to warrant the sudden addition of such power as the Light Force. And, with all that power...you would quickly become intoxicated and you wouldn't be able to function for yourself. You'd be constantly pressed to decide when to use it and when not to use it."

"Is this your fancy way of trying to dissuade me?"

"No, there's nothing fancy about it at all."

"Good. Because that's _got_ to be a bunch of bull crap." He stifled a laugh. "Limits on magic use? Since when!"

She glared at him. "Believe what you want, but if you fail because of your own negligence and stupidity, don't come crying to me."

"I don't see why I would. That would be terribly immature of me," he said with a little hint of offense that she thought he would. She shrugged.

"It makes no difference to me," she said, and she looked up at the series of sculptures and tablets with a sigh. "Magic is really a miracle, to be able to create elements out of nothing, to morph and shift the time-space continuum and alter things so that they defy the laws of science and mathematics. You can only house so much of it before it begins to reject you...you can only control so much before it begins to control you...you can only seek it out for so long before it begins to seek you out."

"What are you talking about? Are you making up more stories for me?"

She glanced over at him. "No. Vaati, don't do this. It's not worth it. Even if you _do_ manage to obtain it, Hylia will crush you before you so much as set foot in the divine realms." She turned to face him as she spoke.

"And what are _you_ going to do to stop me?" he scoffed.

"Nothing. There's nothing I can do." _Except hope maybe you listen to me for once._

"Well, we're done here, so I see no point in staying."

_You know what? Fine. I tried. Obviously you're too caught up in yourself to care what _I_ think._

"Don't trip over your slippery feet on your way out," she called snidely, and as if on cue he tumbled to the floor and she burst out laughing.

"Shut up! I will not have this from you!" He jumped to his feet and started making his way towards her.

"Have what?" She grinned.

"Oh, I don't know, other than complete disrespect?" One step at a time. "Seeming negligence toward your place in reference to me?" She kept smiling that hideous smile that he hated. "Maybe it's the fact that you're no help at all whatsoever. Maybe it's the fact that I just in general dislike you very strongly. It could be a lot of things, but for some reason...I _really_ don't like you now that I have the hat. You were at least tolerable before, with your smart-ass antics and suck-up behavior towards Ezlo. But seeing as I now _own_ you, I am perfectly justified to take the matters of punishments into my own hands." He raised his hands up over his head, charging a spell of electricity. Something crashed behind him but he ignored it. This stupid girl, she would _know_ that he was serious about this, she would _know_ what he was capable of, and she would submit to him, or likely he would kill her in his frustration.

"Um...Vaati?" She looked behind him. And now she was ignoring his approach! The nerve of her!

There was a wild screech and she tackled him, knocking him down as a tremendous boulder of a rock shot past them.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he roared. "INSOLENT SCUM!"

"Shut up and pay attention," she snarled. "You should spend less of your time coming up with ways to make a fool of yourself and spend more time noting your surroundings. And you know? Maybe if you start you'll be less likely to die of something stupid, like getting hit in the back of the head."

"Maybe if you weren't so annoying I wouldn't have to spend so much time punishing you for being stupid!"

She had yanked him up from the ice and now she turned him around.

"Look, dammit! Do you see what I'm talking about now?"

Before them stood a massive blue octorok, and it opened its mouth wide to release another monstrous boulder.

* * *

**_An Introduction to the Downsides of Being a Mage in the Context of This Story Part 1, as seen by RedNemi._**

**_The strength of one's magic depends on the strength of one's soul. One can perform a certain amount of it before doing fancy things like passing out from exhaustion, but just how much that amount is varies from person to person. Just like some people are better at, say, dancing or singing than other people, some people are better at magic than other people. That goes to say, their souls are stronger or, as it is phrased sometime later, have a larger capacity for magic or power.  
Once that capacity is reached and surpassed, the soul freaks out because it can't take the load and it starts rejecting the power. It develops a presence called I-Have-Too-Much-Power-Come-Save-Me, and when that happens, shadow demons and other evil creatures are suddenly so much more interested in you, and they begin to seek you out. Because the soul is weak, by extension the owner of the soul is also weak, and most of the time the demons are easily able to take possession of the owner's physical form and do what they will with it.  
For the sake of developing mages and sorcerers, the soul develops endurance and tolerance to excessive amounts of magic over the course of the years; this helps the student grow in his/her power at a safe progressive rate and most of the time there are no problems.  
But if a sudden skyrocket in power occurs-like, say, someone were to obtain the Light Force-the soul immediately goes into defensive mode and basically destroys itself in a few weeks full of agony and no magic and in this helpless state, being possessed by demons is almost a given because the soul is virtually already gone and isn't really hard to extract.  
Moral of the Lesson: Don't obtain ALL of the Light Force. It's bad for you._**

* * *

**That thing right there. I don't think I explained it well enough. Please tell me whether or not you get the drift so I know whether or not I have to rephrase it.**

**It was pointed out to me last chapter by Lightning on the Dance Floor that Vaati has been stepping out of character a bit. I apologize for this; he will step back into character next chapter. For this reason I absolutely HATE this chapter. Ugh. I'm so sorry. It sounded A LOT better in my head. (This will probably be rewritten at some point.)**

**Thank you for reading, especially this chapter, if you are able to. Please review!**


	11. Still a Child at Heart

Vaati huffed and brushed her away from him. An octorok? Psh, he could take it. He strode evenly on the ice. Behind him, Autumn shrieked in surprise as her balance became uncentered and she fell to the ground. As he went to drag her back with him, the octorok released its massive rock and it smacked into him and crashed him into the wall. He angrily pushed himself away from the cold mass and set fire to it, burning the sculptures and the ice murals and the tablets containing the legend, then sprayed it again with water that quickly froze over. He dive-rolled beneath another oncoming rock and grabbed Autumn by the wrist, dragging her around the fiend with him. As they left the room, the octorok followed, but it was a tad bit too large for the entryway and got stuck. Vaati took this opportunity to freeze it in a giant block of ice, and no longer were they threatened by the tub of blue lard. She pulled herself up as he pointed at the blue thing that was still floating.

"What is that?" he demanded.

"I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"Why would I know? I don't know everything." She folded her arms. "And if you expect me to then you're a fool."

"You know everything else," he growled, "why shouldn't you know this?"

"Because you're so attractive when you're mad." She grinned as he scowled at her, his face distorting in the most unbecoming of ways. "Really though, I don't know what it is."

"You could have just left it at that."

"Well, in any case, can I freeze it?"

"Why would you need to freeze it if you don't know what it is?"

"I wanna see something."

"Fine, go right ahead."

She encased the Water Element in a great mound of ice. "We should close the opening in the ceiling there so the ice doesn't melt," she said.

"How do we do that?"

"There should be a lever somewhere..." Her voice trailed off as she searched for one. "There, on that platform up there."

Vaati phased over to it and pulled back the level, his hand almost sticking to it on contact. A shutter above groaned as it moved into place, covering half of the hole.

"There must be another one—there, on the other side of the room." She pointed toward it, and he phased over to it and pulled that one as well, cursing as he pulled his away and a small patch of skin detached from his hand. The other shutter moved into place, and the area was cast into a cold darkness illuminated only by the skylight from the portal at the entrance to the temple. She shivered.

"Ha! So you ARE cold!" He appeared directly behind her.

"S-s-s-s-so?" She stuttered, then sneezed.

"So you can stop pretending it doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't." She created a mask for herself so that he wouldn't see her weakness.

"Oh for the love of-"

"What? Are you jealous?"

"No. I have no reason to be jealous of you. You're a girl."

"In that case I have no reason to be jealous of you because you're a boy, a mere child of a boy." She snickered as they approached the portal and his face turned red and the insult.

"I am by _no_ means a _child_," he spat. "And it would be in your best interests not to speak to me in that manner, lest you find yourself the victim of my punishment."

"Really, Vaati, seeking supremacy is something of a childish thing to do."

"But only adults have the audacity to work it through."

"But you haven't worked it through."

"How would you know?"

"Because you haven't presented me with any information that will lead me to believe that you have a plan that hasn't fallen apart yet because of something you don't know."

He glared at her. "I have a plan. And it _will_ work."

"Oh really." The sarcasm and skepticism in her voice was like a dull poison, nagging slowly at his temper and self-control.

"Yes," he snapped, "I have a plan. But if you don't mind, I'd like to actually be able to feel my toes at some point today, so can we leave now?"

She shook her head with a grin as he stepped into the light and faded away. "Such a child, Vaati, you are such a child."

* * *

They sat in the center of a rectangle whose corners were marked by towering trees with mysterious outlines shaped like doors, making shapes in the clouds. Somewhere beyond their heads was the drawbridge into the entry garden of Hyrule Castle, and they were simply pausing for a short time before the planned invasion. Vaati had given Autumn her cloak back after the return to the surface made the extra layer uncomfortably hot.

"After I obtain the Light Force," he began, "I will seize control of the guards and the army and force them to obey me, then after I am established here, I will march to the west and challenge the Gerudos."

"You might want to wait until you have a larger following before you go there."

Autumn's dragon cloud pounced on Vaati's cloud of a Minish boy who had picked on him and ripped it to shreds of chilly condensation.

"Why?"

"The Gerudos are a female race of thieves. If you go there with just Hylians, you'll be defeated."

"I will just possess their leader and force them to obey me."

She sighed and her dragon cloud dissolved as she sat up.

"What?"

"I...I really don't see what point you're trying to make."

Vaati scowled and threw away his cloud and rolled over.

"Why does everything need a reason with you?"

"It doesn't-"

"No, it does."

"I didn't ask you for a reason when you took the Cap."

"No, that's because I didn't let you."

"Then what is this about? You're trying to achieve ultimate power, I get that, but there are plenty of reasons why that's a bad idea!"

"Give me one good reason not to."

"Because obtaining so much power-magical or political-corrupts the soul and transforms you into something beastly and inhuman."

"What?"

"In magic, the more power you obtain the more susceptible you are to invasive demons. In politics, the more power you obtain the more susceptible you are to corruption and, subsequently, revolution and civil war. If you want your people to follow you, you have to solve their problems and make them happy. But you will be brought down eventually."

"Do you doubt me?"

"No. But I am not idealistic, and I'm not sure I want to know what this adventure will do to your soul."

Vaati frowned and rolled back over, sitting up and looking at her.

"What did you just say?"

"I said I-"

"You're worried about my soul?"

She blinked at him.

"Why are you worried about my soul?"

She looked away.

"Why would I be worried about your soul? You obviously aren't, why should I be?"

"I don't know, that's what I want _you_ to tell _me_." He grabbed her shoulders and shook her back and forth. "Tell me."

She tried to push him away with a faint expression of disgust. _More and more like a child every second..._

"It's just that lots of power can contaminate your soul, and, well...to put it simply, I don't really want that to happen."

He paused and she looked back at him. His face as he stared at her made her nervous, and she itched to move away, or at least to have him do something besides stare at her.

"What is it with you and contaminating souls?" he muttered, leaning back and facing away from her again.

"This has nothing to do with me—it's _you_ we're talking about."

"Maybe so, but all you seem to care about is oh, if you do this your soul will become corrupted, and oh, if you do that your soul will be scarfed down by some demon, and oh, if you do this AND that you'll get possessed and live the rest of your life on some evil being's leash." His voice had taken on a high-pitched nasally tone in an insulting misrepresentation of her own voice.

"That's because it's true," she said.

"I think you're just trying to keep me from doing what I want."

"The hell I am! You wouldn't listen to me even if you _did__n't_ think I was making it up!"

"The only thing that would make me believe you is if you managed to prove it, which I doubt you'll be able to do."

"Why would I lie to about this unless I had some first-hand proof of it myself?"

"You have first-hand proof? Ok, go 'head, spit it out."

She stumbled in her speech. "But...I..."

"You don't have anything to prove your claims, therefore they must not be true."

"When I was a kid-" she began, but was cut off by a barely stifled laugh of disbelief.

"You're gonna go to _that_ again? All you did was give a couple kids a wedgie! That's _hardly_ soul-damaging."

Now she was offended. "You don't even _know_ what I did to those kids. You don't even _know_ what I had to do to _myself_ to be able to do what I did to those kids. You don't _know_ me, not in the context of who I am now or who I ever was, and you will _never_ understand what I went through," she snarled. "And if you think I was so low as to simply give them a wedgie and call it even, then you have a tragically warped sense of revenge."

"I don't _know_ what you went through? I don't _know_? You seem to forget that we might not have always gone to the same school, but we still lived in the same town, we still got the same treatment for our endeavors. The only difference-"

"-is how we dealt with it." Her voice was a low hiss. "And in that case, you were even more of a child than you are now. At least you've matured a bit since then."

"I will have you know that I never _had_ to do anything about it—my parents moved us away before I could because they were _afraid_ of what I would do to them, not because I was too weak to handle the situation myself," Vaati snarled. He was in a defensive crouch, prepared to spring. "What did you do, then, if you weren't 'so low as to simply give them a wedgie.' What did you do, huh? Did you bite your thumb at them? Did you glare in their general direction? Or did you just look at them? Because I'm fairly certain that you looking at anyone in their right minds would scare them into staying as far away from you as possible."

"You're parents didn't move you away because they were afraid of what you would do, they moved away because they didn't want their wittle boy to be bullied anymore." She spoke in a toddler's undeveloped speech, mocking him in contempt and spite. "They were afraid that you would be scarred from all the insults that were slung at you, so they moved across town and switched schools in hopes of a better turnout. They have little more trust in your mental stability now than they did back when you were in your old school."

Now he realized that she was accessing information that she shouldn't have.

"HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT?" he screamed, and lunged at her. She rolled out of the way and pushed herself up but he grabbed her feet and made her fall back to the ground again. She curled around and knocked him in the side of the head with her fist, followed shortly by the heel of her foot, then she pushed herself to her feet and and trotted a safe distance away. He phased away and reappeared directly in front of her.

"How..." his fist embedded itself into her stomach before she could defend herself and she doubled over into it with a muffled cry of surprise and pain, "...do...you...know...that?" After each word his fist made another crushing impact against her midsection and with the last one she spat blood. She leaned into him and weakly pushed his clenched hand away from her stomach.

"I see you two don't get along any better than you did before you left," said a voice as she coughed up more blood and brought her hand up to his shoulder for support, barely able to balance herself.

* * *

**Gee...I wonder who _this_ 'newcomer' is...**

**I finally got the OC bashing in! I wanted to put it in the Ice Chamber or the Temple of Droplets or whatever it's called, but I decided it was too cold in there...so instead he beat her up in the middle of North Hyrule Field...again as a result of her hating on his 'sensitive' past.**

**I don't really like this chapter much either, but the OC bashing makes up for it I guess. One day I should make her completely kick his arse just to put him back in perspective of his place in comparison to her on the power scale. I hope Vaati has stepped somewhat back into character. _I_ think he has, but I'm not really the one who should be judging; I could make him obsess over a fluffy kitten and come up with my own justification for it, but anyone on the outside looking in would be horrified with his behavior, I'm sure.**

**I hope you like this chapter; please review!**


	12. Strange Encounters

Vaati whirled around to face the voice, taking her with him. On the drawbridge, staring at them, stood a small blond child in a green tunic with a queer hat on his head.

"Ezlo! This is the last place I expected to run into you," he sneered, then giggled. "I see your taste in clothes hasn't changed much, but you are serving your own function well enough. My curse is not to be mocked; no matter what power you wield, you will not be able to break it."

"You haven't changed a bit. I was a fool to leave that cap in the open!"

"Nonsense! This was a brilliant idea! A cap that grants the wishes of its wearer? Pure genius! Thanks to this bag of cloth, I have become the greatest sorcerer alive, as opposed to that pathetic scrap of nonexistence that I was."

"You're insane!" Ezlo narrowed his eyes. "And you've beaten up Autumn again."

"What did you expect me to do? She's annoying, she doesn't help, she questions my motives, and in general she is _very_ disrespectful."

"A dead servant is worth less than a live servant, and only a fool would serve you willingly," Ezlo said in her defense. He put his arm around her as he prepared to spring.

"Clearly she isn't dead, I'm not stupid." Vaati scoffed at him. "In any case, I would not be where I am now without your gracious help. Take this kind gesture as an exhibition of my gratitude." He floated backwards then quickly disappeared as the green boy chased them.

* * *

They reappeared in a corner of castle town, where he leaned her back against a tree.

"You're way more trouble than you're worth," he grumbled as he healed her. "But as it is, I can't do anything without being recognized. You can't really either, but you have the advantage of not being me. Now, go find food."

"Can't you just spawn it?" she asked tiredly.

"Yes. But I'd rather you got it for me. Now go." He pointed off in the direction of some buildings with a commanding expression on his face. She sighed and stumbled off.

The first building she came to was across a small stream with a piece of wood connecting the two sides. She crossed the board with one foot in front of the other and her arms stretched out. A sign in front of the building indicated that it was a cafe, and she blew open the doors with a strong shove that sent them swinging around into the walls they were connected to, and subsequently falling from their hinges.

"I DEMAND SUSTENANCE," she yelled. The woman behind the counter stared at her, and after a few moments she glared at her. "What are you staring at?" she snarled. The woman stuttered some nonsensical thing. "Get a move on and give me something to work with, then!"

The woman jumped a little and ran through a side door. As Autumn waited the people sitting at the tables inside began whispering amongst themselves. She walked up to a bar stool and sat down next to a blue man holding a large box.

"Um...Would uh...Would you like a Kinstone?" the man asked. "If you find a person with a piece that fits into your piece, something good is supposed to happen."

She glanced over at him. "You believe that crap?"

"Well, yes, sir Vaati...and I would also like to request that you don't kill me today."

Her face turned sour, and her voice was a furious rasp of a whisper. "I came in here and instead of killing you, I simply demanded food. When you spoke to me, instead of turning you to stone I responded to what you said. If I _were_ Vaati, your request would mean nothing to me; in fact I would probably completely disregard it and destroy your family right now."

"So...you're not Vaati?"

"No, I'm not. And don't accuse me of being Vaati because I might kill you anyway. Don't insult me."

"Well...would you like a Kinstone? Really, if you find a piece that fits it something about your life gets better."

She sighed, "Sure, why not."

"Take one for Vaati, too." He pushed two Kinstone pieces wrapped in some kind of paper across the table to her.

"Thanks." Her tone was dull as she picked up the small packages. The woman came back out.

"Uh, s-sir, this is all I could find that was c-cooked. That sir over there ordered it."

"Oh for the love of Demise! I'm _not_ Vaati!"

"Oh...are you his sister then?" The woman was innocently curious.

"NO!" Autumn roared, and snatched up the plate. "Thanks for the food." And she stalked from the cafe.

She dropped the plate in his lap. "Happy?"

He looked up at her, "What is this?"

"I don't know, you asked for food so I got you food. You didn't give me any kind of specification."

"Whatever." He picked it up and sniffed it. "Looks like a sandwich, smells like a sandwich, must be a sandwich."

"Oh yeah, some guy wanted me to give this to you." She tossed one of the Kinstone pieces beside him on the ground.

"What is it?"

"It's a Kinstone piece. Apparently if you find someone with the other half and you connect the two something good and life-improving happens."

"That sounds like bullcrap." He sank his teeth into his sandwich.

"That's what I said." She sat down a safe distance away from him and leaned against the wall, and as soon as she did he handed the plate out to her. "What?"

"I'm done. Take this back."

She groaned and stood back up. "Sure."

The woman was startled when she returned to the cafe.

"H-how was your sandwich?" she asked with a gulp.

"Don't ask me, I'm not the one that ate it," Autumn snapped, and she tossed the plate lightly onto the counter and the woman lunged to catch it as it completely missed and headed for the floor.

"But then...who did?"

"Who do you think?" Her glare was piercing as she turned to leave, fixing the doors back to their original position with a hand gesture. When she returned to the corner, Vaati was standing and brushing crumbs from the front of his tunic. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"Yeah, let's go." He held his hand out. She took it with a sigh and they phased away.

* * *

**This chapter was more of a sidequest for amusement. I need a time-waster so Link has some more time to go through the remaining three temples and get lost in the Royal Graveyard. There will probably be dancing involved, and by dancing I mean a flash mob. Yes, they TOTALLY have those in Hyrule...**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, even though it's so short. Thank you for reading, please review!**


	13. The DollKing and his Quest

**Pre-Chapter Author's Note:**

**As much as I would love to summarize and skip right to the Sanctuary and subsequent OC bashing, we have to remember that the event at the beginning of the last chapter happened pretty early on in the game; Link still has to get the Pegasus Boots, find the Fortress of Winds, go through the Fortress of Winds, find and go through the Temple of Droplets, find and go through the Palace of Winds, not to mention trading Kinstones as he goes and meetings with the Swiftblades, and there aren't any more pivotal mentions of Vaati at _all_ during the actual game except the one that happens in this chapter, so for the rest of the time it's either I tell the part of the story that those who have played the game know and love, or I contemplate what could have been happening on Vaati's end of the deal. Given the nature of this story, which one do _you_ think I would pick?**

* * *

Hyrule Castle's throne room is so long that you can stand at one end of it and be so masked by the shadows that a person on the other end can't see you clearly. They'll know you're there, sure—but they won't know who you are, and in fact they might even question their own sanity and think their eyes are playing tricks on them. Vaati and Autumn appeared quietly at the entryway.

"Stay here," Vaati growled softly.

"Why?"

"Because seeing both of us will give him a heart attack, and if I want to do this successfully, I don't want to wind up unconscious because we scared him."

"Who's there?" the King called from his throne. She observed the lack of guards.

_They must all be out looking for Vaati...Of course there aren't any left to stick around and protect the king._

"Who's there?" the King called again. "What do you want?"

Vaati giggled and shifted over directly in front of him.

"You! Vaati! What do you-wait, what are you doing? Wait-no! NO!"

Vaati giggled and he sucked the King's conscious from his mind, then stepped into the empty shell that was left. For a few moments, there was silence. Then, suddenly, in the commanding tone of a leader, the 'King' barked, "GUARDS!"

Autumn hastily hid behind a wall tapestry as soldiers ran in from another room.

"Yes, Your Majesty?" The Darknut, or the head of the guard, placed a hand over his heart and bowed.

"I have a new mission for you," said the puppet-king. "All this time, you have been searching for Vaati, correct? He is searching for the Light Force, is he not? In that case, what are we doing searching for Vaati? This power was granted to us so that we could banish foes like him, therefore we have the right, no, the _obligation_ to use it against him! Bring me the Light Force, and then we will be able to challenge him and defeat him once and for all! Search everywhere, this is now your one and only priority!"

The soldiers all let out excited yells and war cries and ran from the room. Autumn poked her head around the corner to be sure that they were gone and walked forward with a grin.

"That was impressive," she said.

The King's body shifted and changed until it was just Vaati in the King's robes.

"Ugh, I _hate_ that form," he grumbled. "It's so..._large_. I can now vouch for the fact that about a quarter of a king's size is his attire, though. He _has_ to have at least five different layers of varying thickness."

"It helps him look more superior than those around him and the size helps intimidate kids into respecting him." She looked over at the place where Zelda stood, and she stiffened. "What's she doing there?"

"Oh, her? I decided that she would get in my way so I set her to stone. I guess they managed to move her all the way back here. Why?"

"She's..." _She's what you're looking for..._

"In any case, the wall in the Ice Chamber told of a place in the castle that will lead to a Sanctuary of sorts that holds the legend which will tell me the location of the Light Force."

"Did it specify where in the castle?"

"No."

"Gee, that's helpful."

"Oh, quit it with your sarcasm. You go look downstairs and I'll look on this floor, ok?"

"Whatever."

* * *

She stood in the castle courtyard, staring at a giant cavity in the wall, indecisive as to whether or not it was supposed to be there. It was _glowing_ for one thing, so she assumed not. But then again, the Water Element had simply been floating in plain sight for anyone to see should they have entered the Ice Chamber, so a glowing doorway wasn't so strange. _Might as well see what's in here_, she thought, and stepped inside.

As soon as she did, she knew she had found it. Large blue energy crystals lined the hallway, shimmering in the light that leaked in from outside, and led to yet another archway. She paused before it, wondering if she should go back to get Vaati and tell him about this...Nah, he'd probably just ask her what was in it anyway. She stepped into the room, and as soon as she did the door slammed shut behind her, and she whirled around, staring at it. _Well crap._

Raised on a foundation in the center of the room was a platform with small flat-topped pedestals on each corner. One held a floating mound of soil, another held a living fire; the Earth and Fire Elements, no doubt. Markings on the floor indicated what the other empty pedestals were for, and in the center of the platform was a small anvil for a sword.

Nadir manifested in front of her.

-You understand what I've been telling you now?- he asked.

"Now that I see it, yes."

-The Hero in Green will come here after he claims the Water Element, which you froze, and he will infuse it into his blade to make it stronger, then he will seek out the Wind Element.-

She walked forward to a large stone tablet that blocked passage to yet _another_ archway, through which she could faintly see stained-glass murals of some kind.

-Beyond this tablet lies the legend that Vaati seeks, but only the Hero can access it. Once he has infused his sword with all of the Elements, he will be capable of lifting the curse Vaati placed on Zelda, he will be capable of removing this giant block and, ultimately, he will be capable of defeating Vaati himself.-

"_Only_ the hero can access it?"

-Only the Hero can move it, yes. When his sword has assumed its true form and ability, he will be able to charge enough power into the Spin Attack to launch a strong beam of energy that will remove most curses, except the one on your precious Master...That one, I'm afraid, is linked to Vaati himself, so only Vaati's death or dismissal of the curse will free Ezlo from his current form.-

Autumn inspected the pathway.

"Wait a minute, can't I just-"

-I suggest you hide. Link is coming.-

With that he flowed back into her and she jumped down from the platform and hid in a corner. The door opened to allow Link's entry, then slammed shut just as it had for her. He walked right up to the anvil and stabbed the sword into it, and with a great flash of light the Water Element rose into the air and floated over to its respective pedestal, where it lingered for a moment before it melted and became a large teardrop of real water, just like the Fire Element had become a real flame. Beams of light shot from each pedestal now bearing an element and surrounded the sword, and this hilt seemed to have changed colors, but perhaps that was just her eyes playing tricks on her. As he started towards the door, Ezlo looked around and saw her.

"_Autumn?_ What are you doing in here?" he asked, alarm in his voice.

"I was exploring the castle and got stuck," she explained.

"But I thought only children could see the portal's entrance."

"Ezlo, we're Minish. I think it would be something of a design flaw if we couldn't see our own portal."

"True. Well, would you like to come with us? We just need to find the Wind Element, then we'll be able to do something about Vaati."

"I'm...I'm afraid I'm not on your side, Ezlo. I wish I was, but I can't...follow you."

Ezlo stared at her, as did Link.

"I see. I can't exactly blame you, I suppose. Vaati would be furious if he found out you were disobeying him, and given his tendency to beat you up..." His voice trailed off. Link split himself into three forms and opened the door. "But at least you can leave now, if you so choose."

"Yes, thank you." Autumn hurried through the door and ran away from them.

* * *

_**An Order of the Darknuts of the Army in the Context of This Story, as seen by RedNemi**_

_**Throughout the series, you have the notorious Darknuts that take forever to kill if you don't have the proper equipment. In Twilight Princess, the Darknuts were used sort of as Guardians to protect items of worth, e.g. the Dominion Rod and most of Hyrule Castle, proving that sometimes they hold a function sort of beneficial. Therefore, this is the order of their place in the ranks of the army:**_

_**Black Darknut [Twilight Princess character design (Head of Guard/General)]**_

_**Black Darknut [Minish Cap character design (Brigadier General)]**_

_**Red Darknut [Minish Cap character design (Colonol)]**_

_**Blue Darknut [Minish Cap character design (Captain)]**_

_**All other stations are filled by regular commissioned or enlisted citizens.**_

* * *

**The order of the Darknuts isn't really relevant in any other part of the story, I was just trying to explain what a Darknut was doing in Hyrule Castle so early on.  
Also, it should be noted that my grasp of politics and general army things is terribly nondescript and dry of information, so don't think for a second that I know too much in terms of what I'm talking about in reference to such things.**

**Oh yeah, I remember now.**

* * *

_**Concepts of the Mind in the Context of This Story Part 1, as seen by RedNemi**_

_**You know that thing in your head? That thing that's reading this story to you right now in your mind's voice? Yeah, that thing. I call it the 'conscious' because when you fall unconscious, you can't hear that voice anymore, then when you regain consciousness, usually the first thing you hear is the voice in your head.**_

_**By extension of that, each person has the Primary Conscious (PC) and the Secondary Conscious (SC). The PC is the knowledge of the voice in your head, the one you can control, the one that whispers to you and creates thought. The SC is the one that handles all the natural things your brain does like send pain signals and give orders to release endorphines. The PC can shove jobs that it doesn't want to deal with, like handling emotions damaged by intense bullying, onto the SC, and as a result the host may seem mechanical and unphased, but the SC cannot force the PC to do anything; it is the subconscious, so the PC usually doesn't even know it's there.**_

* * *

**I hope that makes some kind of sense...**

**Thank you for reading; please review!**


	14. Sidequest for Amusement

"So you're saying that when the green boy completes the remaking of the Four Sword, he will have access to the legend?"

"Yes."

"That means...all I have to do is monitor his progress and show up at the right time and I'll have access to the legend as well?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Vaati was sitting casually in the throne, leaning against one of the armrests while his feet dangled from the other one.

"May I point out that that position is not very kingly of you?"

"Oh, please. I'm not even _pretending_ to be the king right now." He rolled his eyes at her.

She folded her arms and observed him for a few minutes. He didn't do anything, just leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

"I'm bored, are you bored?" She broke the silence.

He looked at her suspiciously.

"Just because nothing is happening right now doesn't mean I'm bored," he said. "I'm thinking."

"Thinking can be boring."

He glared at her.

"You know what we should do?" Her grin was wide and acidic.

"What should we do?"

"We should start a flash mob." Her smile only widened as he gave her a look of complete distaste.

"Why would we do that?"

"Because this town needs something to spice up its day! I know they had the Picori Festival this morning, but that only lasted for about an hour. Also there's nothing to do there and I feel like doing something."

"Then go tear down a wall or something."

"Destroying things is only fun if there's people involved." Her face turned pouty. She was toying with him again, trying to get him to do something for her.

"Then go tear down a wall of rock-climbers. I don't care, just _don't_ make me get into a flash mob."

"Aww, come on, Vaati. It'll be fun." She gave him that smile again.

"_I_ can't do it, and you know why."

"Oh please, if you can shape-shift back into yourself from the King's body, you can come up with an acceptable disguise for a short synchronized dance." She rolled her eyes at him and put her hands on her hips. "Besides, all you're planning on doing is laying here and moping around and waiting for Link to bring himself to you with a sign saying 'The Light Force is in blank location' and then you can go fetch it, but we both know that isn't happening, so we could at least do something new and exciting to pass the time." Her voice was dark and chiding, as if she disapproved of his inactivity.

He sighed, "Do you have something in mind?"

"If I didn't I wouldn't have suggested it."

"Well, spit it out."

She stepped forward really close to him and whispered in his ear, then backed away.

"Since you're apparently not participating I'll need a clone, if you don't mind."

"Why can't you make your own?"

"Because you're bored and you secretly want to help me with this." She glared at him. "You _are_ going to help me with this, right?"

"I better get some cooperation out this," he growled as he stood up. Her face lit up, as if he had just brightened her whole life.

"Yay!"

He looked sharply up at her, disturbed.

* * *

"How is it that no matter how tomboyish a girl happens to be, she _always_ winds up being obsessed with synchronized dances?"

"It's not that I'm obsessed with them, I just enjoy the concept of large groups of people doing the same thing at the same time," she hissed. "I could say the same thing for _you_ you know. I hardly expected you to even know what I was talking about."

"Shut up! We will _not_ be discussing this any more once we've gotten it over with!"

"Whatever you say, sir." She was still snickering at the thought of him sitting in his room as a kid, practicing the steps all on his own. Her hair was a teal color worn up in two ponytails on either side of her head, mostly covered by a green hood decorated with black monster markings. He wore a similar hooded sweatshirt, except it was blue, as was his hair. Their faces were decorated with a series of thick black lines down the nose and dots under their eyes. They stood facing the entrance to the center plaza with their hands stretched outwards in front of their foreheads.

"Are you ready?" he asked, resentment in his voice.

_I told you you didn't have to do it with me,_ she thought in annoyance.

"Yeah." She giggled to herself. People were staring at them mostly as a result of their clothing; it was really strange in comparison to the typical casual clothing worn by the general public.

The music started; they didn't need a sound system because they could project it into the minds of everyone in the vicinity. It was a high-pitched rhythm, and they jerked their fingers in time.

* * *

**(just go to youtube and search for this: ****【暴徒】 マトリョシカ 踊っていた 【と暴徒】 **

**it was posted by LastOrder14, and it definitely ain't mine. If you think for a second that it is...I'll shake my head and call you crazy, because IT AIN'T MINE! I didn't make it, I had nothing to do with it, but I enjoy watching it on a regular basis.)**

* * *

As the song progressed, the confusion that had at first plagued their mesmerized audience faded away and, at long last, civilians began to join in on the fun. It was mostly females that joined them, giggling their way through the moves. By the time they were finished, they had amassed about eight companions, who all tried to talk to them afterward but they ducked through the crowds and ran away.

As they entered through the basement, they were just in time to see the back of Link's head as he disappeared into the courtyard.

"Oh, great," Vaati groaned. "He's _here_ and I'm dressed like a fucking Vocaloid."

Autumn snickered. "Almost like I knew what I was doing."

He glared at her. "Go to the dungeons or something. It would be nice if I knew something you _didn't_ for once in this whole adventure."

"Whatever you say, Kaito," she said with a grin, and she jumped away from his fist with a laugh.

* * *

**So is this a crossover now? Technically the Vocaloids aren't really involved, they're being cosplayed...**

**The song is Matryoshka, and I don't know who originally wrote it, but whoever did is frickin AWESOME. Also it's the Hashiyan/Zebra version, and I certainly don't own them. They're PEOPLE, man. You don't _own_ people.**

**DISCLAIMER: This chapter was ENTIRELY made up and NEVER happens in the game. **

**I got impatient, so next chapter Vaati finds out who holds the Light Force.**

**Thank you for reading, please review!**


	15. Check the Wall Before Boasting, Vaati

Vaati grumbled to himself and shed the Shion Kaito cosplay, switching it out for the more comfortable but still annoying visual design of the King, waved an invisibility spell over himself, and snuck into the Sanctuary. The boy and his former teacher had already proceeded into the chamber with the legend in it, and Vaati carefully moved around them and stood in front of the stained-glass murals and with a giggle, he lifted the invisibility spell.

"Hehe, I _knew_ following you guys around would be a beneficial pastime," he snickered, and shifted back into his natural form.

"Vaati! What are you doing here?"

"What's it look like? Thanks to your obnoxious adventures to rebuild the power of the sword that you will use to destroy me, I now have access to the legend that will tell me _exactly_ where the Light Force lies, and then, thanks to you, I will be able to obtain this limitless power and become the god I deserve to be!"

"So, you're saying you haven't even read it yet?"

Vaati blinked. "What?"

"You're making plans to take it all already and you haven't even read the legend yet?

"Um..." Vaati snuck a look behind him, then turned quickly back to the front and glared at Ezlo.

"Whether or not I've read it yet has no bearing on the fact that I will obtain the Light Force and smite you or make you my slave. That said, I am now ready to read it, but I can't have you sitting behind my back this whole time." With that he raised his hands over his head and a purple ball of light formed between his fingers and shot into Link and Ezlo, knocking them backwards. They lay slumped on the floor, unconscious. Vaati sneered. "He is a bit feeble-minded if he passes out so easily," he muttered, then turned to the legend.

_Once, in the land of Hyrule, there was a time when Evil dominated over all. The humans could not defend themselves against the monsters that attacked them. Just when all hope was nearly lost, the tiny Picori appeared from the sky, bringing to a hero in green a powerful sword and a golden light. With the golden light, the Hero drove the darkness from the realm, and with the sword, the Hero slayed the monsters that plagued the country, and locked their spirits into a large wooden chest, using the sword's power to seal them there. With peace having been restored, the people enshrined the blade with care. The golden light was lain to rest in the bloodlines of the Princess of divine descent, and also in one who descends from those Picori who first brought it to the humans._

_Well..._ Vaati thought. _That tablet was pretty much useless._ He turned his attention to the murals. The center frame was dedicated to stained-glass portraits of those who were holders of the Light Force. On the left, in all her sovereign glory, surrounded by the smiling faces of her people, was a portrait of Princess Zelda, the girl he had set to stone.

_It figures._

When he looked to the other side of the center frame, he suddenly had a flash of what Autumn had looked like before she disappeared for those few months...She had a black, knee-length coat that she wore daily, no matter how high the temperatures rose, over her school uniform—which was conveniently black and red instead of the typical blue and white of other schools—and knee-high black combat boots. Her hair hadn't covered her face at all, but her typical glare was still the same.

Why was he able to remember her so clearly?

It was because there, in the mural before him, there she stood, in an at-ease position, glaring malevolently out at him. Where Zelda's caricature was encircled by smiling faces, Autmn's was surrounded by the horrified faces of the kids whose lives she stole as a child. Their faces were deformed and their mouths opened wide in expression of screams that couldn't be heard now, but at some point had pierced the peaceful silence of an afternoon sunset. He stared at it, and a rage boiled inside him until he couldn't stand still anymore. He whirled around and stormed from the room. The castle was transformed as his anger grew. The windows tinted until almost no light was shed upon the inner walls. All the servants were turned to stone. Moblins and bats and Wizrobes collected in the hallways. He stomped into the throne room, threw the motionless form of Zelda over his shoulder, and retreated up the stairs.

_I'm not touching her power._

* * *

Autumn sat in the prison cell beside the King. As the servant, she had a certain sense that was dedicated to gauging Vaati's mood, and as this mood plummeted, she grinned to herself.

_He must have discovered that little Zelda was sitting there under his nose this whole time._ She gave a contented sigh and leaned back against the stone wall.

_I'm sorry I didn't tell you,_ she thought. _You would have been furious with me if I had told you there were two and I only knew of one, though. Nadir has been most unhelpful in that regard..._

There was a time of silence, then a quiet shriek as Link and Ezlo fell through the hole in the ceiling in another room. She climbed up onto the table and shrank herself down to the size of a fairy, sprouting large demonic wings through her back. She knelt on the table as a slave kneels; forehead touching the floor, arms stretched out in front of her, and she set herself to stone as if she had met the same fate as everyone else in the castle did.

Ezlo guided the child by communicating with him through his mind. He pointed Link through a Minish-sized tunnel into a cell with a convenient Minish portal, and when they resized themselves, they pulled the Master Lever and all the dungeon cell doors were opened. He ran through to the cell containing the King and quickly focused energy into the Four Sword, swinging it quickly in a circle and shooting a beam of light into the King's stone form, and he slowly regained consciousness.

"Oh my—Link! You're here! How did you get down here? Come to think of it, how did _I_ get down here?"

"Vaati possessed your body and used your authority to command the soldiers to look for the Light Force," Ezlo said. "When he had found out where it was himself, he abandoned that form and took the holders with him to the roof of the castle, where he plans to extract the power from them and use it to make himself a god. We're going to stop him, but we need to get out of the dungeon first."

"Of course. I have a key to the upstairs here...Ah! Here it is. Take it, and may you be—wait a minute, what's that?"

The King peered at the table, and Ezlo and Link turned to look as well. Ezlo gasped.

"Link, child! It's Autumn! He left her here? But I thought...oh well. Quickly! Revive her!"

The child aimed another beam of light towards the small figure on the table, and the beam washed over her and soon she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled a bit.

"Autumn! What are you doing here? I thought Vaati would have taken you with him."

"Huh? No, he told me to stick around in here, then I guess he found out that the holder of the Light Force has been right in front of him all this time so he got really pissed about that and forgot about me."

_She doesn't know..._

"Well, he's got Zelda!"

"I imagine so."

"Link and I are going to go save her, would you like to join us?"

"I don't think I have any other choice."

"So, you're who?" the King asked. Autumn floated into the air and bowed respectfully.

"My name is Autumn, sir. Unfortunately, I was dealt the sickening blow of having to serve under Vaati for the rest of my paltry existence, and so I must aid him in all of his endeavors. This puts something of a wall between us, I'm sure you know, as it is my Master who is sucking the soul from your daughter's corpse."

The King stiffened. "When you use such terminology, you don't make yourself seem any better than him."

"Alas, I serve him, therefore we must be the same." She straightened up. "I suggest you stay here, for I suspect that when he is at first defeated, the castle will collapse from all the damage that will be done to it."

"What?"

"Don't move from this spot."

Ezlo and Link turned to leave, and Autumn flew after them.

* * *

"Vaati didn't even come looking for you after he went into the Sanctuary?" Ezlo asked her. Link stood before an enormous block guarded by four keystones. He placed one of four keys into each one, then split himself into four forms and pushed the block out of the way, clearing a path to a magnificent chest that held the Master Key.

"No."

"But then how did you know that Zelda has it?"

"There are some things that I just...know." She didn't want to tell him about Nadir.

"Huh..."

"There are numerous books about this in the Random History section of the library. It's not hard to tell who the 'princess of divine descent' is here, but the descendant of the original Picori is a little harder. No one, from my generation at least, knows what their ancestry is, so it could really be anyone at my old school or even Vaati's old school. It could be anyone in Minishland, and we wouldn't know. Well...Vaati does, I guess. He's seen the murals. And actually...you should know now too." She frowned. "Who is it? It's not Yuki, is it?" Her nose wrinkled at the notion of the last thought. _Yuki_? A holder of the Light Force? It was almost comical, but nothing about Yuki was truly comical to her. Yuki was a ditz who cared only for herself, and Autumn had no respect for her.

"No, it's not Yuki," Ezlo said absentmindedly. They stood before the final door, prepared to face what would soon be perhaps the most powerful thing Link had ever faced in battle before.

"You ready, kid?" Autumn asked with a grin. She floated in front of his face with her arms folded.

"I'll give you a hint. When in doubt, aim for the eye. You'll get it."

Link lifted up the Master Key, pushed it into the lock, then turned it. The gears inside the mechanism turned and clicked, and the lock fell to the floor and vanished in a cloud of black dust, and the door opened itself. The Hero in Green gulped down his fear and stepped through the door.

**My legend makes no sense!**

**So yeah, Vaati decides to leave his little servant with all of her power, but this is by NO means a good thing! Keep in mind, I have a particular prowess in OC bashing.**

**I got impatient again, so what should have happened over a couple of chapters happened in one. I'm sure you're all just dying to get to the end of this though.**

**Also, in reference to the 'afternoon sunset' thing; I have a somewhat warped sense of time. I tend to refer to times up until about 9 p.m. as the afternoon, and times up until 11 p.m. as the evening. So, by my own reasoning, the sun sets in the afternoon, not in the evening. Just trying to clear that up for you. :l**

**Hehe I look forward to writing the next part.**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please review!**


	16. Two Halves to a Whole

The door slammed shut behind them and Vaati's voice bellowed into their heads.

_Heheh, I see you think you have made it through the door. Well, it isn't just a hop and a skip up to the roof; no, I have a few surprises for you. The extraction process is almost complete. When the bell tower has tolled three times, know that you are too late to save your precious Princess._

On a narrow path over a seemingly unending chasm of a room, a black spark appeared in the air, and before them a ball-and-chain master appeared. Link jumped to avoid the spiked ball that was thrown at him. Autumn whispered something in his ear, and he donned the Roc's Cape that he found in the Palace of Winds and flew over the foe, proceeding up the flight of stairs it guarded.

The doorway they passed through at the top also slammed shut behind them, locking them in a room full of Keatons. Four glowing panels on the floor lined up with four switches at the other end of the room. Link split himself into forms and ran down the platform, he and his alternate selves slashing their swords to kill the enemies in their way, and when they stepped on the switch, the door in front of them opened.

The first bell tolled as soon as they entered the third chamber, which seemed to be empty for the moment. As soon as Link took two steps in, however, with three strikes of lightning, three Darknuts appeared before him; one black, two red. Autumn recognized them; they had all been present when Vaati had first given the command to search for the Light Force. Now their helmets were decorated in black designs, and they emitted a dark aura that told her that they weren't themselves anymore.

Link eliminated the red ones by placing remote bombs on the ground and detonating them as they stepped over them, then slashing them repeatedly while they shook off the shock of being bombed. The head Darknut, however, had to be destroyed with a traditional sword fight, and he served his purpose well; the second bell tolled during the duration of this fight, but he finally managed to destroy the final one and ran up the stairs to the roof.

No door slammed behind them as Link stepped onto the roof. Wind whipped about in every direction, no doubt a result of the extraction spell going on on the other side of the platform. There they were. Zelda was raised on some kind of sacrificial table with a yellow glow surrounding her and a stream of light coming from her to wrap itself around Vaati and flow into him. Autumn flipped through the air over to him, sprawling out on her back on his shoulder.

"Hello, sunshine," she said, with a sarcastic lilt to her voice. He jumped.

"What are you doing here?" Vaati asked.

"What, did you expect me to just wait around in the dungeon for you to come get me?" She grinned.

"Um...yeah, I kinda did."

"Link and Ezlo are here."

"Good for them."

"They've come to fight you."

"I'm sure they did."

"You have your back turned to them. They might sneak up behind you."

"Oh, for the love of—can't I just be left alone to do this _one_ thing? I can fight him later, when I have more magic!" His voice grew agitated and whiny.

"No, Vaati, you have to fight him now." Hers was stern, like a chiding mother.

"Why?"

"Because he's here! He's not going to wait for you to finish up; would you rather he snuck up behind you and killed you easily in your unguarded state or you sent him to a battle ground and defeated him and got him out of the way, then came back for the rest of the Light Force later?"

Vaati growled and broke the energy line, and whirled around.

"The only real problem I have with you showing up when you did," he snarled, "is that processes like this take _time_, and I'm _almost_ done, but _apparently_ you're impatient to meet your end, so you decided to show up _before_ you should have, and as a result I am _very_ angry. What I have should suffice, for now. I have obtained _most_ of the Light Force from your precious Zelda, or whatever her name is. I shall be transformed, unstoppable! No one shall be able to stand in my way! Now, off with your pesky selves to prepare for battle!" He waved his hand and the floor beneath Link disappeared and the boy fell through with a shriek of surprise. Autumn jumped off his shoulder and floated in front of him.

"I can help you, if you want," she said.

"No," he hissed. "I can do this by myself, I don't need _you_ following me around like an untrusting mother."

"I am by _no_ means your mother, or any representation of her, so don't accuse me of being one! And geez, all I was doing was offering some help."

"I don't need _your_ help," he sneered. "You're just a servant, you don't have any actual worth. You're useless, you get in the way more often than you help, you referred to me as _Sunshine_ of all things, and you seem to be completely unaware of your place! You are in _no_ position to be offering me help of any kind even if I did need it!"

His words cut into her mind as if her brain was a tree thrown into a woodchipper.

"Fine, if that's really how you feel," she mumbled, and she bowed in midair. "I most grievously apologize for my errors, and I hope you will find it in yourself to forgive me for them." Her voice was quiet, and he could barely hear it, and it didn't help that she was talking into the floor.

"I-I'm just..." he stammered. "...stressed."

"For good reason. If you fight with your head, you should be able to defeat him, though. Just don't get over-zealous. You'll slip up."

"Gee, thanks for the confidence," he grumbled.

"You sure you don't want me to help?"

"Yes."

"Hey! Maybe if we fuse our Kinstones together now you'll be less likely to fail miserably and die!" She realized something and her face fell. "But that's only if they fit each other."

"And yours is a few hundred times too small right now anyway."

She rolled her eyes at him and resized herself.

"Happy?"

They pulled out the Kinstones and removed the wrapping. Both pieces were shiny and gold, with a straight, jagged edge where the other half was supposed to go, and Autumn's seemed to be directly inverted from Vaati's. They stared at the pieces.

"Gee, what are the chances that we're given two pieces that fit?" Vaati's voice was sarcastic as they pushed them together. Where the edges met, a golden light formed and sealed the cracks together, melding the two pieces into one. The reformed Kinstone rose into the air, glowing brilliantly, and shattered into a million shards that sprinkled over them.

"Well...I don't feel any better, do you?" he asked.

"No."

"I wonder what happened..."

"Nothing, that's what happened. Oh, they joined up and disappeared. Nothing changed, though."

"Dammit. Let's go, then." He held out his hand.

She shrank herself again and landed lightly in his palm.

"You're the one with the Light Force," she said. "You lead the way."

He blinked in surprise, then shook his head.

"Right. Don't worry, I won't let our raging hurt you in any way."

* * *

**What happened as a result of the Kinstone piece exchange will reveal itself sometime in the next chapter or two.**

**I realized the other day that I only really started this about nine days ago, and as of two days ago I had 14 chapters. I should have checked my pacing better—the rate I'm going, this particular story will be over in two weeks, tops. Therefore, I'm going to do my best to disprove that theory and totally stretch everything out, and try not to get too impatient for the ending. The ending is my favorite part XD.**

**Either that or I'll actually queue my chapters so I'll be able to proofread them more extensively before I post them.**

**Battle scenes are fun to write but I'm not very good at them...**

**In any case, thank you so much for reading if you've made it this far! My prose gets hard to stomach at times, I know.**

**Enjoy and please, please, please, PLEASE review!**


	17. The Beginning of the End

Vaati's form materialized before them, Autumn in his hand. His fingers closed around her and he muttered something, raising her high in the air and pitching her across the room. Just before she slammed into the wall, a clear bubble formed around her and stuck itself to the first thing it touched, a support column running vertically along that section of the room. Ezlo blinked at her.

_What was that about?_

"You do not understand what you're dealing with," Vaati growled. "You do not know what wrath you have awakened, you do now _know_ what I can do to you. I am the most powerful thing in this room, and I _will_ defeat you."

He swept his cape about himself and his form turned completely black and elongated until he was about twice as tall. His red robes protected a giant eyeball nestled into the midsection of the new form, and the 'eyelids' fluttered shut, and two smaller metallic eyes appeared from nowhere and began swirling about him at high speeds, tripping Link as he tried, and failed, to attack the eye. Vaati raised his hands and released a series of fireballs, one of which hit the boy as he picked himself up, and with a "Yike!" he ran around trying to put out the flames that burned his tunic and singed his hair. When the fire was effectively extinguished, Link, a bit shaken and certainly upset, adjusted his grip on the handle of his sword and slashed angrily at the metallic eyes. Two slashes and they were both eliminated, and Vaati paused in his floating around and the eye opened to get a better look at his opponent to evaluate his position, and Link took his chance, swinging the sword rapidly multiple times. The eye widened in surprise and blinked to ward off the blows, then closed again, causing the blade to catch on the robes and allowing the form to knock him over again as four of the smaller eyes floated out and began the circular motions. Another round of fireballs set the poor kid running again, and for some reason he thought it would be a beneficial pastime to run directly into the path of the small eyes, so very soon he was exhausted, he stood with a droop and he staggered. Vaati saw this with snide satisfaction, and put his guard down. Even in his weakened state, though, Link was still able to slay the floating eyes and attack the larger one when it opened itself again, even if the sorcerer tried to phase to other parts of the room to ward him off. After the second time, he was considerably weaker, he was sloppier in his attacks, his third shot of fireballs _completely_ missed the boy, and when the round of eyes popped out they weren't able to knock him over, so Link found himself hiding in a corner, digging around for something. He revealed a bottle containing a white fluid, pulled out the stopper, and drank deeply from it. His health visibly improved and his exhaustion went away. With newfound energy, he threw himself into a final attack, and the form of Vaati staggered backwards and fell to its knees. Autumn seethed in her bubble, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.

_He told me not to interfere,_ she reminded herself. _If he wants to be repetitive and predictable about his attacks, then so be it..._

"You silly boy..." Vaati's voice hung in the air as he disappeared and the room transformed into a larger, darker chamber with eight glowing tiles arranged in a crude four-tile square with no corners. "That sword is the only reason you still live, though for having beaten _that_ flimsy form, I commend your bravery. But you _will_ know that I am Vaati, and I am superior to you, and you will fail!" He floated down in the broken form, which began to fade. He growled. "I have a power that you cannot _begin_ to understand! Your petty attacks are cute and that trick with the milk was clever, but they will not help you in the end."

The form darkened down to black and shifted into a larger, more circular form, and when he removed the mask he revealed a gigantic, piercing eye surrounded by eight smaller ones, two on each side. The eyelids for each were lined with a golden bar that arched up at the ends to form some sort of horns, like the piece that had held the red stone in place on the Wishing Cap.

He moved about the room in an irregular path, changing directions every few seconds, and he successfully ran Link over once before he learned to avoid the giant eyeball cluster. Ezlo whispered in his ear and his face brightened, and he pulled out is bow and arrows, took aim, and shot the closest eye right in the iris. It shut itself quickly and turned a deep red. Link repeated this action with the one beside it, then with the two closest. He observed the placement of the red eyes and the glowing tiles, charged energy into his sword, and carefully stepped on the tiles so that they corresponded with the positions of the eyes, split himself into four forms, then ran up to the eyes and slashed them all at the same time. All of the smaller eyes dropped down from their placement and the larger one was left unguarded, and Link was happy to slash at it until his alternate selves ran out of energy and disappeared. The eye glared at him and created eight more subordinates, then spawned tacks out of nowhere and threw them at him. Five stuck into the green child and he was left to sit in a corner and wince as he pulled them out, then to rise shakily back to his feet for the next round. He tried the same combination of the smaller eyes, but they turned blue, as if the arrows he shot hadn't actually hit them. He shot one on the opposite side, and _that_ one turned red, so he shot the three nearest it, then went to charge his sword, but Vaati paused in his moving around to send three electrical shots at him, one of which actually hit its target, and he spazzed and fell to the ground, shaking. When he pulled himself up again the hair that stuck out from under Ezlo sort of gravitated upwards, his eye twitched uncontrollably, and his hand shook as he held up the sword to charge energy into it again. Vaati stupidly lowered his defenses again, thinking snidely to himself that he couldn't possibly have any more milk anywhere in that nonexistent bag of his. The child's forms appeared and he stumbled forward to continue the process—hack and slash for a minute or two, shoot an eye, shoot an eye, shoot an eye, shoot an eye, if you missed any in the previous four shoot another eye, charge sword, spit self, repeat. Vaati began moving about more quickly, pushing Link around and deliberately running him over in an effort to keep him from being able to shoot his arrows and create his forms. Again, Link's movements became sluggish and tired. His face was scratched from running into tacks, his tunic was torn, not to mention the holes in his midsection from the tacks that had embedded themselves in his body. The form slammed itself into the ground and threw more tacks as pieces of the ceiling fell down. A particularly large chunk fell directly onto Link's head, effectively crushing Ezlo and his charge. Vaati snickered and prepared a victory speech in his head, but just as he was about to speak, a small fairy appeared out of nowhere and soared around the fallen child, shedding magic dust onto his corpse. Light speckled around him, shining most brightly where it met with his injuries as they healed. They did nothing for the cause of mending his tunic, but regardless he was able to jump up, refreshed, ready to fight once more. Vaati's form shook with anger, but all he was apparently prepared to do in retaliation was throw more electric bolts and tacks at him and tear apart the ceiling some more. A chunk of stone fell onto Autumn's bubble and it cracked at the top. She was throwing herself at the walls anyway, begging him internally to take up a less repetitive plan of attack, but when the crack formed, each time she hit the barrier it widened. Link prepared to strike one last time, as as he did she burst through the pathetic defense and tumbled to the ground.

* * *

**Boss fights. I love them but I hate them. In this case, Vaati's attack patterns really _are_ tragically predictable, and he never really does much to spice them up and make them more interesting.**

**This story is almost over! -gasp- No! I bet two or three more chapters, then I'm done...maybe I'll be able to get five if I stretch it far enough. Oh well...it goes how it goes, and I hope that you, the reader, are satisfied with how it winds up going.**

**Thank you so much for reading this far in, and please review!**


	18. Dead End Autumn

"What...what-what is this?" Vaati's voice took an annoyingly high pitch. "I am Vaati! I am the most powerful being in this land! How could I possibly have lost to a child?!" The giant eyeball form vanished with a _poof!_ and Ezlo breathed a sigh of relief as the room faded back to its original design.

"Good! Well done, Link! Now, let's go remove the curse on Zelda!"

Link ran up the stairs, the both of them having apparently forgotten Autumn's presence. As soon as they disappeared, Vaati materialized in his original form, bleeding from multiple, deep-looking cuts in his face, chest, and arms. She stumbled over to him, resizing herself as she went.

"You dumb fool," she hissed.

"Don't start," he mumbled, blood sputtering up from his mouth as he spoke.

"Why couldn't you listen to me?" she demanded. "Why couldn't you put some real effort into beating him? Were you _trying_ to get yourself killed?"

"No...Autumn, don't start...don't make me hit you." He rolled over and tried to push himself up onto his knees, but had to grab onto her arm to keep from falling over. His breathing was haggard, his face strained.

"I don't think you could hit me even if you wanted to," she said, taking his wrist in her left hand and pulling it across the back of her shoulders, lifting him up with her as she stood, her right arm slung around his back, holding him up. "Where to?"

"Um...The portal."

A golden sparkle melted down from the ceiling and went to the side of the room and flowed into the wall, where the outline of a large door spread out and the wall disappeared, revealing a hidden staircase. Not even knowing where it led, she took him to the staircase and slowly they descended.

The passageway ended at the Hyrule Castle courtyard, and as soon as they passed through it, the opening shriveled up and became as though it had never been there.

"I can walk now," he said quietly, so he wouldn't spit up blood. She shrugged and straightened him out, then swept her arm out in the direction of the glowing archway as if to say 'yeah, sure. Prove it.'

He stumbled about halfway there, then tripped and fell to the ground, wheezing. Blood dripped from his open mouth.

"Man...he really got me good, didn't he?" he said with a short laugh, trying to make light of the situation as he tried to stand up, but again, fell to the ground, and this time he just lay there and stared at the dark sky.

"He's still coming, you know. You guys beat up the castle pretty well."

They heard distant crashes as parts of the castle collapsed.

"Oh, fuck...You know what, this blows, let's just go home, shall we? I'm in no shape to be fighting a kid who has some kind of sorcery that brings him back to life." He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.

"Hold still."

"Why? If we don't move he'll show up again."

"Hold still because I told you to."

"That has no bearing on my decision to move." He tried again. She glared at him.

"If you don't stop moving, I can't heal you, dumbass."

"Why would you be healing me? I thought you hated my guts."

"I _do_ hate your guts. Unfortunately, you may remember that there's this fancy little concept called there-are-consequences-for-your-actions and guess what! I'm stuck with you for the rest of your stupid life, so you might as well be _healthy_ for most of that time."

"Huh." He leaned back, then grinned snidely at her and tried to pull himself up again, only to have her snarl in frustration and sling herself over him, pinning him to the ground by his wrists.

"I am _not_ a paperweight, but you have forced me to take up its function," she hissed.

"I might just continue doing this to continue watching you pretend to care about me," he said, and he leaned his head back. "It's kinda nice. The Great and Terrifying Autumn Demon-Spawn cares about me."

She slapped him across the face.

"Aww...guess not."

"If you don't stop moving I'll kill you myself," she growled. "Now _hold still_."

Vaati wrinkled his nose at her and looked over toward the archway.

"You know, there's something you might like to know in there," he said.

"Oh? Like what."

"Like who the other holder of the Light Force is."

"Yeah, so?"

"What, you know?"

"I know Zelda has some of it, but you took most of hers."

"Well, there's another person that might peak some of your interest."

"I doubt it."

"I don't..."

"I'm sure I can continue living my life without needing to know who all holds the Light Force."

"Well, it'd be nice to know, I'm sure."

"Will you _stop_?" Her grip on his wrists tightened and he winced. "I _don't_ need to know who it is, so stop trying to convince me that I do!"

"Autumn. As my slave, it is your job to do as I say when I say it. That said, I command you to pick yourself up off of me and go right into that chamber and stare at the mural until you fully comprehend who else holds the Light Force, then, and only then, can you come back."

"I'm not doing _shit_ until you're healed," she snapped.

There was a short silence.

"So...what...what _did_ happen when you were...you know...younger?" he asked.

She sighed and flopped over off of him so that now they were both staring at the sky.

"You really want to know?"

"Well...it's the reason everyone at home was afraid of you, it must be pretty big."

She closed her eyes and exhaled.

"Ok...I was always something of a loner as a kid after I figured out what magic was. Pretty much what happened was I stumbled upon a beginner-level spellbook one day and tried some things out, and when they worked, the concept of it all was really fascinating to me, so I spent most of my time trying to find out more about it. I got my mom to buy me _hundreds_ of books on it, and yet I never seemed to know enough to compose my own spell and make it work. My classmates at school didn't like it when I stopped talking to them, they didn't like that I ranked an inanimate object over them in my priority list, so they spent much of their time trying to tear me away from it. It turned into a game, really, which they always lost. The try-to-get-Autumn's-attention game, featuring pulling hair, shredding papers, and stealing personal belongings. When they pulled my hair, I ignored them. When they shredded my papers, I reformed them. When they stole my belongings, I stole them back. It was that simple, and I never spoke a word to them. After a few months of this, they grew bored with the game and started to lose their respect for me for always reading. They learned some fancy derogatory terms from their parents and started to use them in reference to me. I became what the student body of the middle school _didn't_ want to be, and my name was almost an insult. If someone didn't want to hang out because they were legitimately worried about failing a test the next day, all his or her friend had to do was accuse them of being an Autumn and they would drop everything to partake in whatever thing the friend had wanted to do in the first place. That really...Once I realized what was going on it really hurt...to know that people saw me like that. They started beating me up on my way home from school, and they would tear the pages from my spellbooks and throw them around the street. I would go home to my room and re-bind them as best I could, though often they had many missing pages and therefore many incomplete spells that I could no longer master as a result. Then about two years before the transition into high school, they were...um...unusually harsh, shall we say. They spent virtually all of their time picking on me, and for some reason that year was the year my ears decided to hear what they were saying and send the messages to my brain for me to think about. They would follow me home from school, calling their snide comments and sarcastic remarks to me. The one day they told me I was a useless piece of shit whose profession was dying and wouldn't receive any funding, that I was wasting my life, that I was doomed to live in a box under a bridge, hoping each day that there would be no rain so that I wouldn't be swept up by the river. They called me a Dead End. For some reason the concept of this was really, really...upsetting...to me. I actually ran away from them, and when I closed the gate to my house behind me, I realized that this was no way to live. I can't spend the rest of my life being mocked and tormented for my choice in pursuit. But, as I was...I didn't want to hurt them, either. We Minish are actually typically a peaceful race-only a few are as violent as some of the humans tend to be. I didn't want to just sit them and let them berate me like that, but as I was, I couldn't let myself do that; my subconscious wouldn't let me. So I calmed myself down, and with what energy I could muster, I wiped my own mind clean of its emotions, I removed them. That way, when I reopened the gate and looked at their hideous, smiling faces, I was ready for them." Her voice turned again into a snarl toward the last part. The sick part was that it was a smiling snarl, like she was happy for the next part. "Oh, yes. I was ready for them. You know what I did? I stole them. I took their minds and inverted them and erased them and oh, the screams they did scream! It _hurts_ to have your mind removed and played with like that. They were all rolling on the ground, holding their heads, crying like infants. They begged me to stop, but I just kept going. I took every one of their memories, abilities, joys, grievances—I almost took their _souls_, but I'm no demon...even I don't have the capability of doing that. Well, they were making _quite_ a ruckus, so of course many adults had run from their houses and were screaming at me themselves for me to stop. I didn't stop until each of them had nothing left to live for. I didn't stop until they themselves were Dead Ends. And when I was done, I simply turned back into the gate and went to my room. I didn't speak to my mother for a week—it didn't matter that I didn't go to school because I was suspended for two weeks for that even though it happened off of school property. After that...no one bothered me though. The silent treatment was a good change for me. I could do what I wanted again and have no interference." She sighed again. Vaati was quiet for a moment.

"You say you removed your emotions," he began carefully. "What exactly do you mean by that? Because you are _far_ from emotionless, if you don't mind my saying."

She wrinkled her nose. "Well, when I did that, I was still just a kid myself. My own magic wasn't very well developed yet—in fact if anyone had paid attention they would have noticed that I spent most of the time immediately following the event sleeping because I was so exhausted from it—so shortly afterward they started remaking themselves, but it wasn't so bad...in fact, that was a pretty good change too; I could take pleasure from scaring people instead of just doing it to get them to avoid me, and that itself made them steer very far from my path. The emotions that emerged didn't change me at all, they didn't get me any friends."

"But...what about Yuki?"

"Psh, Yuki? Yuki only ever hung around me so that _she_ wouldn't get bullied. Once she realized I was the most effective jerk-repellant around, she started following me around, and people stopped bothering her. You saw her whenever I had to do something—she was just like everyone else; eyes averted, bodies leaning back as far as possible, arms stretched out in front of them, like they were trying to push themselves away from me." She sat up and looked down at him. "You're almost done."

"If Yuki was just like everyone else, why did you put up with her?"

He was giving her a quizzical expression, like he felt she was contradicting her own mindset by allowing her classmate to stick around.

"She was the only one who _tried_. She found that as long as she didn't do anything stupid, I probably wasn't going to incriminate her for being herself." She pulled herself up. "Well, that's enough of that," she said.

"Will you at least go look at the mural now?"

"Geez, what is it with you and the mural? Fine...if you _really_ think it's that important..." She turned to the archway, then hesitated and turned back. "If I get back here and you _aren't_ in that same spot, I swear to Demise I will rip your heart out with my own hands."

"Yeah, yeah, I believe you."

"Quickly, into the Sanctuary!" Ezlo's voice was faint, and the green boy was running towards the entrance to the courtyard with Princess Zelda following him. Autumn growled in disdain and with a dramatic sweep of her hand she threw Vaati up into the air, to his yell of surprise and annoyance. Link stopped short, and the princess ran into him and knocked him forward.

"A-Autumn! What are you doing here?" Ezlo stammered.

* * *

**-wipes forehead- WHEW! That took a long time to write! More Autumn-spoiling, yeah! Hey, at least now you know what happened, even if it DID take a thousand words to explain it...X.X\\\**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter, even for how long it is.**

**Please review!**


	19. Where is Nadir in All This Fun?

**I realized shortly before beginning this chapter that I screwed up big time _last_ chapter. The way I ended it last time, I did not set myself up for a smooth, game-consistent transition into Vaati's final boss form. As a result, I had to put in some group interaction between Zelda, Link, Ezlo, and Autumn, and then I had to completely screw everything up to get Vaati back into the picture. DX That was a total brainfart for me, I should have thought that through some more before posting.**

**Nevertheless, I hope you like the way I worked around that. I suppose if EVERYTHING I wrote was consistent with the game this would be rather pointless...meh. I hope you enjoy this chapter, even _if_ I happen to be dissatisfied with it.**

* * *

"What, did you expect me to wait around for you to remember me?" Autumn's voice was grating.

"I'm so sorry about that—we were just so preoccupied, you know...with restoring Zelda's consciousness and everything."

"I know." The short statement was clipped and abrupt. She was mad about it?

"Autumn,usually you're understanding of such circumstances."

"What makes you think I don't understand? I know; I'm below Zelda on the priority list, considering she's a princess and we're on foreign land, so it's part of our obligation to make sure nothing here is too damaged when we leave."

"Then why do you sound so mad?"

"Why do I sound mad? Why do _you_ think I sound mad?"

"You just sound like you're upset about something and I'm wondering what it is."

"I'm sure if you think it through you can figure it out."

Ezlo pondered for a few moments. "I can't think of anything at the moment, but before I put any more thought of it I must express the urgency we must feel right now—the castle is collapsing and we're trying to get Zelda to a safe place and the door is blocked by some pillars that were knocked over, so we must proceed to the Sanctuary."

"You aren't going anywhere beyond this point." She took up a defensive crouch. "So don't come any closer."

"Huh?"

Link tried to take a step forward, but she swept her arm forward and clenched her fingers and something closed around his throat.

"Don't test me, boy," she growled. "If I say don't take a step, don't take a step. There _is_ a way for us all to get through this without killing anyone, and I'd appreciate it if we took all the necessary precautions in making sure that happens."

Link inhaled deeply, falling to his knees as her hand relaxed and the hold on his throat went away, allowing him to take in precious air.

"What are you so defensive-" Ezlo realized the answer to his own question. "Where is he?"

Autumn pulled her lips back into a tooth-bearing grin. "He's here. He's healing though; the spell is slow for a better result."

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" Ezlo shrieked. "Autumn, he's evil! He tried to kill Link, and he tried to obtain Zelda's Light Force, and it's only a matter of time before he comes after _you_ if you just up and heal him like that! Great Goddess—this means we have to battle him again!"

She giggled, "Of course you do, you didn't think that was all he had, did you? We _were_ planning on returning peacefully to Minishland after the spell finished, but since you're here and expecting a fight, I guess you leave him little choice but to oblige, and by that reasoning, as he said, he is in no condition to be fighting a child who is allowed to carry fairies that will bring him back to life. Your mute friend may have been in a rough state when he was finished with the last battle, but he's had _plenty_ of chance to replenish his health. Why should Vaati be left to suffer when Link here was given a special supply room full of stuff to restock his items and health? Really, it's quite unfair, if you ask me. And don't worry," she said, disappearing as Link drew his sword and took a few steps forward. She appeared directly behind him, stooping so that she was just about his height, and she reached around, took the sword from him with one hand, hooking her other arm through his elbows and holding the blade to his throat. "I can be just as evil as he can," she hissed into Link's ear. Zelda squealed in fright.

"What are you doing?" she cried. Autumn swung the sword hand around and pointed the tip at the dip in the bridge of Zelda's nose with a scowl, and the Princess shut her mouth, looking at the point with crossed eyes.

"Shut your mouth," she growled. "If you stay out of this, I won't hurt you."

Ezlo watched her with a scrutiny. "What happened to you?" he asked. "What did Vaati do to you? I don't remember you ever being like this."

"Vaati didn't do anything to me." She brought the sword back to Link's throat and straightened up so that his feet dangled in the air and she wore him on her arm like a shield, and positioned uncomfortably like this, his untrained body began to tremble. She grinned at Ezlo. "I've just been thinking quite a bit about the situation he and I happen to be in, and you know something? It kinda makes sense. He has _always_ been evil. Maybe there _was_ a point in time when he was 'generous' enough to go out of his way to help someone, but that was only a short phase designed to give him a chance to bind someone to him, and that someone he bound to himself was me." She scratched her head, then looked down at the boy. Link was shaking uncontrollably, his breathing haggard as he tried to stop it. "Oh, I'm sorry, am I wearing you out before the battle even begins? So sorry, I apologize, really, I do." Her tone betrayed her sarcasm as she deliberately dropped him onto the floor. She tossed the sword at him with disgust.

"Just like that? Just like that, you decide to dedicate yourself to him?" Ezlo didn't believe this.

"We can convince ourselves of the most amazing and sometimes the most irrational of things just by thinking about it," she said as she walked away.

As he weakly tried to pull himself to his feet, she walked farther into the courtyard and raised her hands, pulling down a form dyed completely black. Vaati broke through it with an enraged yell, knocking her against the far wall. His eyes were wide and his skin bulged with veins and he stared at Link, even newly emerged as he was, even though his first words were directed towards Autumn.

"I don't need _you_ to speak for me," he hissed. "I don't need _you_ to explain my actions. You don't know my motives, you don't know _me_. Do not try to pretend you do. There might have been a time when I thought I was done, when I thought I could return home peacefully...But now, looking at this _infant_ of a scumbag, I fill with hatred and my anger soars. Heheh...You thought it was over, did you? You thought my second form was measly, did you? You don't know who you're dealing with, boy. I am Vaati! I may not even have _half_ of the Light Force, but I have enough. I have been transformed! No longer am I that pathetic scrap of a morsel of power that I was! I have become the God I yearned for so long to be! I have become Vaati, Master of this world!"

He waved his arm and the courtyard, and Zelda, disappeared, and a large platform materialized below their feet. Link observed it. Four glowing tiles were nestled in front of him, and a Minish portal stood at the opposite end of the floor. He looked over the edge, then gulped and took a few steps further in. There was nothing beneath them. It was just a large, black abyss, and if he fell over...he didn't want to think about what would happen to him if he fell over the edge.

A large black silhouette floated down to the center of the platform.

"Heh...You may have defeated my previous forms. Kudos for that. But you will not survive this form. You will be defeated. You will die. And then, your pathetic world will fall to its knees before me and accept me as its ruler!" Vaati's voice grew high-pitched and maniacal as he spoke. "You will be forgotten, Link! Your legend, with its whispers of reincarnation and victory, will be destroyed! No more will there be the Hero in Green to save the day, no more will there be some child-prodigy to come for an ego boost, no more will evil be cast aside as petty tricks and nuisances. Evil will dominate everything!"

The form cast an arm out to the side and spindly threads shot from the arm and pinned Autumn to the side like a spider's web pins a fly within itself as it melded back into the main figure, which stretched back into the round shape of the previous form, and the black mask faded, revealing the same eye. Four smaller eyes materialized in front of it, and two mechanical arms sprouted from its sides. Link's eyes widened and his sword drooped a bit as he stared at the sorcerer before him.

* * *

**WHEEE that was fun. Next chapter we get to actually _battle_ him! I would have smushed it into one chapter but I think I only have one or two or three more after this, including the post-story author's rant and epilogue. I feel like killing off some characters.**

**I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review!**


	20. Survival Instinct

Link jumped to avoid the pincered hand that lunged at him, and swung his sword at it, but the blade bounced off, having left no mark or damage of any kind. He rolled to avoid the next one, and moved into a corner and stared at the figure that floated across the platform, trying to assess how he was supposed to defeat it. The eye narrowed and one of the hands plunged into the floor, then resurfaced directly below him and he yelped and hurried from the snapping claws. He yanked the first object he closed his fingers on from his traveler's pouch and threw it at the evil stagmite. The Cane of Pacci released a bolt of light and the hand stiffened and flipped upside down, revealing a small doorway, too small for anything the size of a human, but it might be small enough for a Minish. Link's eyes widened, and he took off for the Minish portal, then he sprinted the distance, now seemingly much longer, and schlepped through the tiny golden archway. The room was full of metallic eyes, and he groaned. Did he have to defeat _all_ of them? They all moved constantly and usually away from him, and when they ran into him they left little cuts on his skin. They were all so...bland. Boring. Emotionless. They just stared at him, each with a lifeless eye the same color as the metal that coated them. He tried slicing a few, but as he suspected, this did nothing to cut down the population. All it did was get him more flesh wounds. The ground began to quake, and Ezlo started trying to drag him towards the archway again, and just as he left, he saw it. There was a single floating eyeball that was not like the rest. Its eye was colored red, and when it noticed him staring at it, it hurriedly rushed back among the monochromatic mass and out of his vision, and he passed again through the archway as the giant arm slithered back through the ground and returned to the main form. This was no longer scary to him. He knew what he had to do. He simply had to return to his original form and size, and get one of the arms to flip upside down again, then he had to go back through the portal and find that goddamn eye and slash the heck out of it. He panted as he came out of the portal, briefly doubling over and leaning on his knees.

_I can do this..._

He pulled out the Cane of Pacci again.

It's one thing to discover the way to defeat a foe by oneself. It's a completely different thing to go about it and succeed. As it was, Link had flipped the same arm at least three times, and the third time he only just barely was able to slice through its vulnerable socket enough times to cause the arm to collapse. A claw descended from the roof and caught onto his hand and hauled him out, leaving him to wonder what it was doing helping him from an exploding evil arm. Was this stupid sorcerer _trying_ to get himself killed? Why else would he provide transportation from the inside of a dying limb? It made no sense. Nevertheless, he stumbled back through the Minish portal and prepared to start with the second arm. The swinging of the Cane was almost a mechanical routine by now—if at first the beam of light that was produced did not hit the arm, he simply repositioned himself then swung it again. He was feeling a little tired out, so the first few swings missed, and then the arm slurped back through the floor and he had to run around and avoid electrical shots and hope he didn't forget where he was going and fall off the platform for a few more minutes while he waited for Vaati to stick the arm through the floor again. _Finally_ he was able to get the arm to flip itself over, and he shrank and ran through the archway, but when he passed through he realized with dismay that he couldn't see anything. What, he has to carry an activated lantern _and_ hunt for a metallic red eye? That was like looking for Anju's cuccos!

He held the lantern high and peered into the small radius of light that it produced. It was almost out of lantern oil...gee. How helpful. Just before everything went completely dark, he saw the special eyeball, and he dropped the lantern and threw himself at it with a crazy war cry, slashing and swinging his sword like there was no tomorrow. The walls began to collapse and he paused to breath, his chest heaving. He...he did it! He got the floating eye! In the dark! He straightened up and twirled his sword with a grin, sliding it back into the sheath. Was this it? _Can I go home now? Gramps must be worried about me. I haven't seen him since I fused Kinstones with him about six hours ago. Speaking of which...I haven't run into anything special lately, do those things actually work?_

The claw came down and pulled him outside as the arm disappeared into nothing, and as he resized himself again, the main eye closed itself and concentrated its power, and two sets of bat wings extended from the sides, and the form rose from the ground, once more capable of moving. Link groaned and plopped down in a corner, putting his head in his hands. He was so tired...

There was a crackling noise, then suddenly he was hit by an electrical shot that caused him to spaz up into the air, and he toppled over, off of the platform. Vaati giggled to himself and glanced over at the motionless blob at the side of the battleground.

_You thought I couldn't do it,_ he thought snidely.

A bright light flashed a little ways above the platform, and the green child fell from it, landing on the floor with a _crash!_ as various items tumbled from his pouch. The Cane of Pacci, the Ocarina of Wind, a boomerang, Roc's Cape, and a peculiar pair of gloves with pointed tips all spread out around him. A fairy appeared and threw some of her magic dust onto him, and groggily he pushed himself up. Seeing some of his items strewn about the floor, he jumped and gathered them quickly. Vaati viewed these proceedings with repugnance, and the eyes attached to the front of his form glowed with a blue light as they charged energy within themselves, and after a few moments four beams of power were released and one of them was absorbed by the child, and it traveled through him like an electric shock, wringing him out like a washer wrings a soaked towel, then he dropped weakly to the floor. The eye narrowed and he quickly slid down the floor, releasing a string of attacks, and Link rolled out of the way to avoid them, then picked himself up and began charging his sword. The eyes collected their energy again as he split himself, and he lined his alternate selves up and waited, then the four of them swiped their swords as the beams of energy charged towards them, and they were repelled back unto their caster, who fell back in surprise, and the Links were able to fall upon him in a flurry of swinging swords and tearing flesh.

After a few repeats of this process, Vaati was tiring. His attack method grew sloppy; instead of attacking with electric bolts and charging the beams simultaneously, he instead released the bolts, then charged the energy, was struck by the child, then he forgot about the first part altogether and skipped right to the charging of energy.

With a sinking feeling of impending doom, he watched as the Links lined up again, and the eyeball swung back over to Autumn's restrained form. The beams of energy were released, and just as they were deflected and redirected towards him, he summoned her from her place at the side of the platform and threw her before the oncoming death sentence. There was one more chance for him. He had one more opportunity to take advantage of the tools he had available, one more opportunity to survive, one more opportunity to get out of this with but a few scratches. He took it, and threw her into the brunt of the attack.

* * *

**OC BASHING! YEAH! Oh, I have so much fun with this. I hope you have as much fun with it as I do. Hehe next chapter I get to go into more detail about it. I can't wait.**

**He'll regret this later, don't worry. One does not simply sacrifice one's own servant and get away with it, not in MY head anyway.**

**By the way, I don't know if I made the Kinstone thing abundantly obvious, the the result of the Kinstone fusing was the passageway from the battleground to the courtyard that Autumn helped Vaati through. It was insignificant, so I didn't go into much detail with it, but I hope you picked up on that...**

**Thank you for reading! Please review!**


	21. Dearly Beloved

There was the sound of the fabric ripping as he tore Autumn from her blind place at the side of the platform, to which the web-like substance had attached itself, there was the putrid smell of burning skin as the energy shot embedded itself into her, effectively grating into her side, and she screamed from the pain and went rigid. She was not heavily armored as he was, and when it hit her, vulnerable as she was, she stiffened like a rod, turning her face skyward, and she fell and she fell and she fell, and then there was a great outburst of smoke that shrouded around them as he shifted back to his human form and caught her and they fell together. Blood was pooling on the floor as the platform faded away and they returned to the courtyard, dripping from both of them. He hooked an arm around her stomach and dragged her back, out of sight, so that Link would not see that they were still alive.

Autumn was sputtering syllables that he connected together to form words.

"Dis..miss...cu-urse...E...zlo..." She grimaced and looked down at the wound. Nadir flowed from her face, a triumphant grin on his face.

-Yes, it is time!- he said. Vaati blinked and leaned to the left, looking around the shadow.

"Who're you?" he asked.

-Heh...you don't need to know that, fool.- He reached out and tipped her chin up.

"Who are you?" Vaati repeated, growing angry.

-Don't concern yourself with that, just be glad I'm not here for you.- His voice was smug. Autumn's brows were furrowed and her nose wrinkled. A black cloud formed at the corner of her vision, collecting into a hooded figure. It glowed with a faded light, and she wondered if it was actually there, or if she was seeing things.

-What are you looking at? Come on, it's time, Autumn! It's time for me to collect your soul! I've left you alone long enough, and I'm _starved_, man. Now let's make eye contact so I can take your soul.-

"What're you talking about?" Vaati was clearly annoyed by this point.

Autumn ignored them; she was watching the figure. It didn't move, but she was given the impression that it was staring at her.

_If you wish to escape this unfortunate fate that has befallen you, utter the words that allow time to pass without you, and when you awaken, you will survive._

The voice was hollow and raspy, and barely rose above a whisper.

_If you wish to live, recite the Aria of Time. Only then will you evade the death that comes for you._ The cloaked figure began to dissolve into the air.

She closed her eyes and leaned back, into his shoulder, and focused on her breathing, and when that was at an acceptable rate, she searched her mind for the words to the time-warp spell.

Vaati was muttering slowly, and there were collective gasps from the general direction of Link and Zelda when Ezlo fell from the boy's head and faded back into a Minish.

Nadir growled and forced her to look into his eyes. They were sunken and black, and they threatened to suck her consciousness from her if she didn't pay attention to what she was saying. Vaati listened to the words with a frown, trying to decide what she was trying to do, and when he figured it out, he joined in. They began to glow with a faint golden light, and the demon's hand sizzled against her skin, and he shrieked in anger.

-What are you doing?- he hissed. It was now apparent to the others that something was going on in this corner. Ezlo ran hesitantly up to Vaati and snatched the Wishing Cap from his head, but his apprentice did nothing to stop him, just fixed his eyes on the enraged shadow and spoke louder.

-STOP IT!- Nadir roared, and his hand sank into Autumn's head. Her voice broke off for a few seconds, and little silvery wisps of essence began to drip from her eyes, and in a panic she continued the spell. -YOU PESKY BRAT! I WILL NOT BE DENIED THIS!-

When the Aria of Time was complete, with a sudden pulse of light the two disintegrated into flecks of dust that swirled around in the air, then in a single stream surrounded the Four Sword and melted into it. Nadir snarled in fury.

-You have run off with your life this time,- he hissed, -but I will find you when you come out, and your soul, and your vessel, will be mine, and my Master will finally have a chance to be reincarnated.- He sank down into the floor and phased away.

* * *

**SUCKY CHAPTER IS SUCKY  
****…..  
****SUCKY ENDING IS SUCKY**

**Yes, that's right. Unfortunately, this is the ending to An Unfortunate Fate. I will do more explanations and crabnitz in the post-story Author's Note, which I will write tomorrow, because I'm dead tired right now.**

**I really hate this chapter. It went A LOT better in my head, but due to that stupid thing called Writer's Block I was unable to adequately describe what was going on. Nadir was a lot more pissed, Autumn was a lot closer to being dead, and Vaati was also a lot weaker, but I had to skip out on a lot of that to get some of the points across. (Reading back through it, I think to myself: LOL WHAT ARE THESE POINTS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT? YOU DIDN'T MAKE ANY POINTS IN THIS CHAPTER!)**

**In any case, if you have made it through THIS chapter, then I commend your capacity to stomach my writing XD because honestly...I can't stand this. I mean really, they ALL took a giant step out of character.**

**If I ever come up with words for the Aria of Time, I will edit them in. So far, all I have is:**

**_I beseech ye, Rauru, Sage of Time;  
_****_To preserve my function and my mind_.**

**I'm open to suggestions...**

**I also thought this part would be a lot longer than it turned out to be...**

**In other words, this chapter will probably undergo serious remodeling at some point. But for now, please accept this shitty third draft as some kind of compensation for putting up with me for the past 20 chapters.**

**Thank you so much for reading, I hope you can at least tolerate this. Please Review!**

**(Lol; post-chapter author's note takes up about a third of the space XD)**


	22. Acknowledgements and Apologies

**Post-Story Author's Rant**

**First, I'd like to say I will be very amused if this turns out longer than the longest chapter. I will be amused and annoyed. I mean seriously...I should not have THAT much to say about a story that wasn't really that long and was full of author's notes and little lectures along the way to begin with. There can't be THAT much I missed out on. Then again, I am notorious for going off on tangents and creating huge, run-on sentences that contribute pretty much nothing to the initial goal of the original statement and thus are actually completely useless. I've tried to keep that to a minimum throughout the story, but there are probably sections where I failed at that.**

**Second, I'd like to say THANK YOU OH MY GOSH YOU'RE AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH! to SoulDea and Lightning on the Dance Floor for being my loyal reviewers from the beginning. 3 You two are awesome and your stories are awesome too. :) (Legit, though, I really like their stories. They make more sense than mine XD. Go read them.) Other people have reviewed, yes, but their reviews were one-shots and didn't help me much, but I still appreciate them. No matter how less-than-helpful they may have been, any review I get is like candy to me. I LOOOVE reviews.**

**Third, I'd like to say OH MY GOODNESS YOU ARE ALL MAKING ME SMILE STUPIDLY THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! to the five people who have, at this time, favorited the story. You are: SoulDea, Lightning on the Dance Floor, NatalyaKay, Mirria1, and HogyokouSP. They all have amazing epic stories themselves that are cooler and more deserving of attention than mine. I am proofreading NatalyaKay's You Fill My Heart With Rainbows at the moment.**

**Fourth, I'd like to apologize for all the errors that I'm too lazy to fix. I cringe every time I see them but I don't do anything about them. Someday, when I have nothing better to do with my time, I will go through and fix EVERYTHING, and then you'll be able to read it without getting a headache.**

**Fifth, if you've made it to this rant, you have an amazing tolerance of my stupidity and I thank you for putting up with me.**

**There will be a major pause in the series as I look more into what happens in Four Swords, but there's a pretty darn good chance that millions of different versions of the aftermath of this story will show up in between, just because I feel obligated to update at least once a week when I'm not in story-mode. And I have many many many many MANY different drafts of what happens after this part. I have many different drafts of this story altogether, so a bunch of them will probably find their way here at some point of another.**

**Either that or I'll backtrack way back to the beginning and start on the pre-Skyward Sword story. But I still have to figure out what's going on with _that_ too, so it'll still be a while.**

**Regardless, the story WILL continue at some point, when I'm not pressed for time as a result of school and band and all the fancy stuff that comes along with it. And with the way I obsess over it, it'll probably happen even if I have a huge, passing-grade-dependant, life-or-death project due the next day. I have adopted an invertedly twisted list of priorities.**

**Again, thank you so very much for reading all the way to this point, and I shall try (TRY, note) to get my thoughts together and find something else to post.**

**RedNemi**


	23. PostScript Reading Bonus!

**By the way, for all you lovely people who actually read this.**

**I have ONE open OC slot for the next part.**

**You can probably figure out what it's for -winkwink-**

**So, if you have an OC that you would like to appear in my story,**

**GIMME (via PM):**

**A Name,**

**A Description,**

**A Brief Backstory (some ideas, please)**

**And by brief, I mean a short paragraph describing the basic essentials, e.g. family problems, I-was-an-outcast, I-am-a-tomboy, I-have-special-powers. You know. Stuff. Anything else, I'll come up with on my own.**


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